Kathmandu, May 4

Office of the Attorney General today submitted its annual report to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari urging the government to sign mutual legal assistance and extradition treaties with other countries to control organised crimes.

In its annual report of 2018- 19, the OAG said there should be at least one government attorney for 150 cases in all government attorney offices apart from the minimum posts of government attorneys.

The report stated that at present every government attorney had a workload of 257.53 cases and if all other work performed by the government attorneys was taken into account, the workload would be equal to 941.90 cases for every government attorney.

Highlighting the need for enactment and implementation of new witness protection law, the OAG said a separate specialised body or unit needed to be set up to investigate crimes.

The OAG gave legal opinion to the government bodies on 75 issues in the fiscal year 2018-19.

As per the OAG report, in fiscal year of 2018-19, the total number of cases government attorneys defended was 73,237. This is 11.76 per cent more than the last fiscal.

Similarly, the number of cases, writs and applications in which the Office of the Attorney General and its subordinate government attorney offices had argued or defended was 90,134. This is 12.50 per cent more than last fiscal year.

The OAG said that overall it successfully defended 67.70 per cent government cases and writ petitions.

The number of cases and writ petitions argued or defended by the Office of the Attorney General in the Supreme Court was 13,492, out of which 3,429 cases were adjudicated.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 5, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.