Now, you don’t need to attend court for divorce

Kathmandu, December 13:

There is a good news for couples wishing for divorce even though a divorce is in itself a bad news. The good news is that you don’t need to attend the court for the proceedings; your lawyers can do it all long.

In a landmark verdict, the Kathmandu District Court today granted divorce to a couple, now living in the US, without their presence in the court. The lawyers did on their behalf all along.

The Court granted Sanjaya Karki and Mukta Karki a divorce, accepting the power of attorney the couple had transferred to their lawyers.

This is the first case in which the court accepted the power of attorney in a divorce case. The decision was given by a single bench of judge Narayan Prasad Dahal.

Currently living in Texas, Mukta had initiated the case last year accusing her husband of threatening her of life over the telephone after getting drunk.

Sanjay, currently living at Massachusetts, replied to the court through his lawyer.

Mukta is a permanent resident of Lalitpur and Sanjaya of Baneshwor. They had tied the knot seven years ago in Nepal.

“By settling the case through their power of attorneys, the court has accepted the concept of globalisation,” advocate Chandra Kanta Gyawali, who represented Mukta in the court told this daily. “The decision proves that our judiciary is pro-active,” Gyawali added.

“They had sent their separate power of attorneys last year. But, there was a confusion before the judge as there was no practice of accepting power of attorney in divorce cases,” Gyawali added. Earlier, the court used to flatly reject such requests as the divorce is a sensitive issue.

In order to settle the confusion, the case was produced before the full court meeting and was finally decided today.

Earlier, there was a practice of accepting power of attorney in cases related to transfer of property and other civil cases.