Kathmandu District Court Reports 99% Summons Service Rate

Kathmandu. In the last three months, 99 percent of summonses have been served in the Kathmandu District Court.

Out of 60,337 summonses received by the court, 58,791 have been served, informed Shiv Khatiwada, Information Officer of the District Court. The process of informing the opposing party or stakeholders to appear in court for the judicial process is called summons service in legal language. Among the served summonses, 46 percent were for served summonses and 50 percent were for unserved summonses.  

Most of the unserved summonses are related to banking offense cases, transactions, and divorce cases, as well as appeals and ledger cases, Information Officer Khatiwada told Ratopati. Delays in summons service are also caused by employees, and the service is also affected by influential individuals. It is also delayed due to forgery and disputes, and procedural errors can even obstruct the entire case proceedings.  

The reason for many unserved summonses includes the uncertainty of the defendant's residence in banking offense cases, and problems in summons service due to cases proceeding based on temporary recommendations in divorce and transaction cases, Khatiwada says. Although there is a provision to include phone and email along with the residence in the plaint for individuals renting in Kathmandu whose addresses keep changing, it has been found that it is not being used.

Since summons service is preliminary to case proceedings, hearings or decisions cannot be made by the bench until this process is completed. Among the courts across the country, the Kathmandu District Court has the highest case load. In the fiscal year 2082/83 alone, 26,445 new cases were registered.