Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla has said that preparations are underway to live broadcast important cases in order to make the delivery of justice more transparent and accountable. Speaking at a program to launch a new portal aimed at strengthening and increasing transparency in the Constitutional Bench, she informed that a committee has already begun work on conducting a feasibility study and formulating procedures for this initiative.

She also stated that the current information technology (IT) system of the judiciary is weak, and highlighted a future goal of establishing systems for online registration, virtual hearings, online payments, and the ability to download court decisions from home. Her recent decisions, reflecting her long-standing progressive approach as a legal professional and her commitment to maximizing the use of information and communication technology, are expected to make court services much more accessible to the general public, who have traditionally relied on conventional court processes.

Emphasizing the use of technology to protect the Constitution and ensure transparency in justice, she said that the Supreme Court has launched a separate portal for the Constitutional Bench. Acting Chief Justice Malla also noted that clearing pending cases has been prioritized. According to her, there are currently 282 cases under consideration in the Constitutional Bench, including cases as old as eight years dating back to 2017 (2074 BS). She also stated that the Supreme Court has set specific targets for resolving these cases.

The court has also set a goal to resolve election-related disputes within six months of their registration. She clarified that this timeline has been established to end the past practice where cases remained unresolved even after the relevance of elections had passed.

Acting Chief Justice Malla’s statement (verbatim):

“Today, we have brought forward this portal as a first step toward strengthening the Constitutional Bench, protecting the Constitution, and ensuring transparency in justice. When we talk about the role of the judiciary, we carry a great responsibility as the guardian of the Constitution to protect citizens’ freedoms.

Not only the Constitutional Bench, but all honorable judges are responsible for interpreting the Constitution. However, the new Constitution has introduced provisions for handling certain types of cases differently, particularly to ensure the essence of federalism. For this purpose, the Constitutional Bench has been established to manage specific types of cases.

These include, mainly, election-related disputes, issues concerning the boundaries and balance between provincial and federal governments, the review of laws that conflict with the Constitution, and other serious constitutional interpretation matters.

However, I would like to emphasize that all judges of the court interpret the Constitution, and only certain specific matters are assigned to this bench.

Looking at the overall situation, the judiciary currently has a large number of cases. As of Falgun (February/March), there are 275,678 cases pending nationwide. Out of these, 95,204 cases have been resolved, which is only about 34.5 percent.

While there is a significant need to clear these cases, looking specifically at the Supreme Court, as of yesterday’s data, there are 33,667 cases registered, out of which 6,536 have been resolved, leaving 27,131 cases pending.

Within this, if we look at the Constitutional Bench, there are 282 cases pending as of the 17th. The unfortunate part is that we still have cases pending since 2017 (2074 BS), meaning some are eight years old. Additionally, there are also cases that have not even had a show-cause notice issued for up to a year.

This has made us realize that we need to be more serious and adopt a different approach to delivering justice. This does not mean that other cases are not a priority. Every case is important to individuals and institutions alike, whether heard in full benches or larger benches.

However, in today’s context, while we have prioritized other cases in the past, we now intend to give even higher priority to the Constitutional Bench and expedite the resolution of pending cases. Accordingly, we have set certain targets.

Out of the 282 pending cases, including those up to eight years old, we have set a target to resolve at least 33 percent of them within three months.”