If the statistics of five municipalities –Budanilakantha, Mahalaxmi, Tokha, Dhulikhel, and Surya Binayak– within the Kathmandu Valley are to be analyzed, there has been an increased frustration among service-seekers.

Indira Aryal: Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal

Complaint- 1

Selling seven bighas of parental land in Dhanusha to buy a meager four anna of land at Mahalaxmi Municipality-5 of Lalitpur in 2003 was something onerous for Chandra Kishor and Saraswati Yadav.

It’s been more than 15 years now since the couple has been residing in the same plot of land by constructing a house.

However, for the Yadav couple, the situation did not turn out to be smooth as Chandra Kishor and Saraswati had thought of. The last one year has been troublesome for this couple after one of their neighbors Bhanu Kumari Khatri filed a complaint at the local level Judicial Committee alleging them of constructing their compound wall by encroaching upon the roadway. 

The Yadav couple has been frequenting the Judicial Committee since then. They even produced the required evidence to prove that the wall was constructed on their land. However, this did not work for the Judicial Committee members. Despite producing the evidence, the Judicial Committee members, instead of providing justice to this couple, has been perpetually inspiring them to reconcile.

An exasperated Yadav — a retired Under Secretary of the Government of Nepal – feels to have been treated as inferior by the committee. He asks, “Are we second-class citizens?”

 He has more to add: “This apparently is an act of favoring local residents. The committee has been persuading us to settle the dispute by demolishing the wall and provide a portion of my land for the pathway,” he complains, adding, “Isn’t this an unfair treatment?”

Bhanu Kumari’s husband Ramesh Khatri, meanwhile, insists that like other neighbors, they too should be allowed to use the pathway. The survey record, too, asserts that the land genuinely belongs to Saraswati. Khatri says they are planning to move the court since the Judicial Committee could not settle the case.

Meanwhile, alleging the Khatri family of constructing their house by encroaching upon public land, the Yadav couple, lodged a complaint at the Judicial Committee on 11th July 2019, seeking that a portion of Khatri’s house be demolished so that a motorable road could be constructed in their neighborhood.

However, the Yadav family complains that the Judicial Committee has been coercing them to settle the issue based on mutual understanding by allocating some of their land to widen the road.

Nirmala Thapa, Deputy Chief of Mahalaxmi Municipality, also the coordinator of the Judicial Committee, conceded of encouraging the Yadav couple to settle the dispute based on mutual understanding as the committee decided to fix the breadth of the road as per the criteria.

Complaint- 2

Radha Devi Maharjan, a resident of Mahalaxmi Municipality-1, too, is tired of frequenting the Judicial Committee due to its hemming and hawing. It’s been almost one year that Maharjan has been hanging out at the Judicial Committee with the hope of getting justice. Maharjan had taken over the ownership of the auctioned house of Janaki Panti, a resident of Mahalaxmi Municipality-5, in 2015. Despite taking over the ownership of the house, she could not actually own it as the people residing in the house denied to vacate the house. She, therefore, was compelled to knock the door of the Judicial Committee on 27th July 2018. The complaint was initially registered at the ward office, which then was forwarded to the Judicial Committee. The Committee then wrote a letter to ward no 5 instructing the office bearers to help vacate the house.

On April 25, 2019, the ward office, in a letter, responded that the dispute actually had no connection with the house. “Since then the Judicial Committee has been lingering the case under various pretexts,” Maharjan complains.

Coordinator of the Judicial Committee Nirmala Thapa, meanwhile, informed that Maharjan’s case has been sent to the court after one-and-a-half-year of the registration of her complaint. “Despite efforts, we could not settle the dispute. Therefore, we forwarded the issue to the court,” she said.

Complaint- 3

Eighty-year-old Narendra Bahadur Adhikari, a permanent resident of Budanilakantha Municipality-8 has been rendered homeless after his second son Gyanendra Adhikari drove him out of the house on April 2019. Since then, Narendra has been staying at her daughter’s house. Narendra lodged a complaint at the Judicial Committee on 9th July 2019, against his son. While his eldest son currently lives in Australia, his two other sons live in the Hatigauda-based house in Kathmandu.

Despite the Judicial Committee’s repeated summons, Narendra’s second and youngest sons, Gyanendra and Dipendra, never turned up. The Committee then made a decision instructing both Gyanendra and Dipendra to provide a total of Rs 80 thousand (Rs 40 thousand each) to their ailing father, an asthma patient, on a monthly basis for his treatment.

“Despite being well-off, they never turned up to the committee to receive the committee’s decision,” Punya Prasad Kafle, bench officer at the Committee said. “Narendra has constructed three houses in Kathmandu. And now he has been rendered homeless. The situation is that the committee’s decision has not been implemented.”

According to Gyanendra Adhikari, the dispute came to the fore in the course of property sharing among the family members. He alleged his father Narendra of selling two houses in Kathmandu to send his youngest son Dipendra to the United States. However, rather than flying to the US, Dipendra has been staying clandestinely in Sanepa, according to Gyanendra. “Therefore, I am disturbed due to property-sharing issue,” he stated.

Complaint- 4

A resident of Tokha Municipality-10, Damodar Adhikari, 52, lodged a complaint at the Judicial Committee seeking divorce with his wife Shanta Devkota Adhikari, 42, on 27th July 2018. Shanta has been staying at her parent’s house since November 2006. She had then filed a case at the District Court alleging her husband of not providing her and her infant son with essentials and seeking a portion of her husband’s property. Even after winning the case, Shanta continued to stay at her parent’s house. Her husband Damodar then knocked on the door of the Judicial Committee seeking divorce with her. On 15th March 2019, the Judicial Committee forwarded the case to the District Court after failing to settle the dispute which was under consideration until 7th May 2018.

Case settlement, negligible

These are some of the representative cases that have been registered at the Judicial Committees of the Local Levels. Complaints have been piled up in the Judicial Committees of the municipalities within the Kathmandu Valley. The number has increased significantly this year in comparison to last year. This story incorporates the statistics of the five municipalities (Budanilakantha, Kathmandu; Mahalaxmi, Lalitpur; Tokha, Kathmandu; Dhulikhel, Kavre; and Surya Binayak, Bhaktapur) within the Kathmandu Valley.

Source: Concerned municipalities

A total of 348 cases were lodged in these five municipalities until mid-June 2019. Among the complaints registered at the Judicial Committees, the local levels have failed to settle even 50 percent of the cases. Out of the total number of cases, only of 146 cases registered at the Judicial Committees have been settled while 191 are still pending or waiting for justice. Some 22 cases, not settled, have been sent to the courts.

The local level Judicial Committee receives complaints on domestic violence, boundary dispute, family disputes, property, among other issues. The Judicial Committees, which has been established to settle disputes through mediation or regular judicial process at the local level, have not been able to perform as expected due to lack of capacity, expertise, resources, and manpower.

“The number of complaints has increased in recent times. The committee can conduct the hearing of very few cases once a week,” says Bimala Sharma, Deputy Mayor of the Dhulikhel Municipality and coordinator of the Judicial Committee.

She adds, “We receive around three to four complaints daily. But since we conduct the hearing only on Fridays, we will be able to hear only five cases a week.”

Budanilakantha Municipality has been facing a similar problem. According to Rama Devi Rai, coordinator of the Judicial Committee and Deputy Mayor, they have not been able to perform as expected due to lack of manpower and required resources. “We even lack a venue to conduct a hearing,” she complains.

Tokha Municipality, meanwhile, conducts the hearing in an open space. “We have no way out due to the lack of physical infrastructure. In such a situation there are possibilities that information and confidentiality can be leaked out,” complains Gyan Maya Dangol, coordinator of the Judicial Committee while justifying the much-delayed process while looking at and settling the complaints.

This municipality, too, has not been able to settle even half of the complaints that have been lodged at the Judicial Committee in the last two years. Such an ineffectiveness attitude has raised a question mark on the relevance of the Judicial Committees.

The Judicial Committees mentioned in this report conduct hearings based on complaints lodged at the committee only once a week. Hearing of at least five cases can be conducted in a day which means that 260 hearings can be done in 52 benches in a year.

According to a study carried out by the Nepal Law Society, at least eight benches are required to settle a complaint. And if the current practice is to be continued, the judicial committees cannot even settle more than 32 cases in a year.

Question mark on the skill of Judicial Committee

The Nepal Law Society, which conducted a study in Kavre, Sindupalchowk, Saptari, and Dhading, has raised serious question mark regarding the competence, skill, capacity, and effectiveness of the Judicial Committee leadership. The Society has concluded that the cases have not been settled due to the lack of legal know-how and experience. It has pointed out the need for capability and skill training to the concerned authorities. 

Lalitpur district’s Mahalaxmi municipality bench. Photo:Indira Aryal

The study has also raised a serious question mark on the impartiality and credibility of the practice of the Judicial Committee. The study said that several cases have been influenced by political leadership due to which a significant number of people have been victimized. Executive Director of the Society Krishna Man Pradhan says, “The proceedings have not been effective as most of the office-bearers lack educational qualification and legal knowledge.”

According to him, about 90 percent of the cases, which has been settled by the Judicial Committees, have been quashed by the district courts. “That’s why the credibility of the Judicial Committees has been deteriorating day by day,” he said.

However, advocate Achyut Raj Budathoki, who has been working as a mediator at the Mahalaxmi Municipality, has a different story to say. “It’s all because of the lack of a permanent judicial mechanism,” he says adding further, “People’s representatives lack legal knowledge. Such a mechanism cannot be effective until and unless they do not hire legal experts.”

Spokesperson at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, Bhupraj Baral points out lack of effective monitoring of the Judicial Committees. “The government lacks serious monitoring mechanism. One of the reasons could be that there is no system of sending the report to the center,” he adds.

Consider what advocate Ganga Dahal has to say: “One of the reasons for the Judicial Committee’s ineffectiveness is because the Nepali society is reluctant to accept a woman leadership.”

According to the Local Government Operation Act 2074, the three-member extra-judicial bodies (Judicial Committees) have been entrusted or mandated to settle 12 different types of disputes on the basis of regular judicial process, such as property, boundary disputes, compensation for damage to crops and disputes over the payment of wages, among others, and another 13 types of disputes through mediation. Only the cases which cannot be settled through mutual understanding will be sent to courts.

Juna Basnet, Coordinator of Suryabinayak Municipality Judicial Committee says they forward the case to the courts only if they do not succeed in settling them. “The Judicial Committee has been given the mandate to settle cases of divorce on the basis of mutual understanding,” says Basnet. “We send them to the court only if we fail to settle those cases on the basis of mutual understanding,” she adds.