Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, July 1:

Valley courts will no longer enjoy Sunday offs. This was decided today by a full court meeting of the Supreme Court justices. For the last 10 years, the SC and all subordinate courts in the Valley have been enoying all Saturdays and Sundays of the month as public holidays. According to acting SC registrar, Dr Ram Krishna Timalsena, today’s meeting reviewed SC’s 10-year-old decision on the ground that the practice was discriminatory to the courts outside the Valley. “Though some judges were in favour of Sunday off in the Valley, later on they, too, agreed to the new arrangement,” Dr Timalsena said, adding, “The decision was unanimous.” The new arrangement will come into force on July 16, the start of the new fiscal year. “We reached the decision after analysing the pros and cons of Sunday offs,” Dr Timalsena said. “Discontinuing with the Sunday offs in the Valley courts was a better deal than granting Sunday offs to all courts outside the Valley.” Dr Timalsena added the new arrangement would help reduce the Supreme Court backlog. According to him, the Supreme Court started reviewing its policy on public holidays immediately after the government took the decision to scrap off Sundays as public holidays some months ago.