Kathmandu, June 1

Attorney General Agni Prasad Kharel today said his office would start a programme to produce 40 specialised attorneys next year who would deal with organised crime and constitutional issues.

Speaking at an interaction organised here today, AG Kharel said 20 specialised attorneys would be produced within three years in multiple sectors to deal with issues related to revenue, corruption, banking crimes, service law, public property issues and cybercrime.

Stating that timely report of forensic science laboratories was needed to file watertight cases in the court, the AG said that his office would also set up forensic science laboratories in each of the seven provinces.

AG Kharel said some of the government attorney offices did not have their own buildings which had adversely affected their performance. “We are going to build our own buildings or at least purchase our own land for the buildings in three years,” he added.

The AG said that child care centre would be set up in all government attorney offices within one month for female staff. He said the government attorneys would abide by

the recommendations made by the first government attorneys’ conference that stated that the government attorneys would not defend government cases if they found prima facie that the government authorities had violated laws in those cases.

He said that his office would prepare new prosecution guidelines for government attorneys keeping in mind the new precedents set by the Supreme Court and new civil and penal codes that will come into effect on August 17.

These new codes will increase work burden on government attorneys besides changing some procedural matters of the government cases.

AG Kharel said his office would adopt a zero-tolerance policy against corruption. He said the new criminal procedure code had made new provisions for filing a memorandum of appeals in criminal cases and his office would ensure that the notice relating to filing of the memorandum of appeals were served to the parties to such cases on time.