The Supreme Court has extended the suspension of statutes of limitation, deadlines and hearing dates by an additional 60 days, citing disruptions caused by the Gen Z movement that led to arson, vandalism and prolonged court closures.
A special full bench comprising all 19 justices decided to extend the deadline freeze after finding that many litigants were still unable to comply with procedural requirements within the earlier timeframe.
Courts across the country remained closed from September 9 to November 15, following violent protests that damaged court buildings and destroyed case files. The Supreme Court had earlier declared the period void and allowed deadlines to be suspended until December 15, after courts reopened on November 15.
However, the court said the relief period proved insufficient for many service seekers, prompting the full bench to allow deadlines to be maintained or revived for another 60 days, starting from January 15.
In its order, the court said the decision was made to address the inconvenience, confusion and hardship faced by litigants due to the “extraordinary situation” created by arson, vandalism, obstruction and looting, and to ensure ease in judicial proceedings and protect the right to a fair hearing.
The ruling also applies to high courts, district courts and tribunals. For these courts, the period from September 9, until the date services resumed, as notified by the respective courts, has been recognised as an extraordinary situation under the Directive on the Recovery and Authentication of Case Records and Documents Destroyed Due to Special Circumstances, 2025.
Accordingly, litigants in all cases, whether records were destroyed or not, will be allowed to suspend expired limitation periods, deadlines and hearing dates for 60 days from the date services resumed.
The court has directed the Office of the Attorney General, the Nepal Bar Association and the Supreme Court Bar Association to ensure the order is implemented across subordinate courts and widely publicised.
On September 9, protesters set fire to—and vandalised—various courts, destroying about 933,000 case files. A total of 30,752 files from ongoing cases and 903,071 archived files were destroyed across all affected courts. The files of 20,034 of the 24,234 cases sub judice in the top court were lost. Only 2,509 writ-related files and 1,691 other-case files survived. As many as 197,000 files of the decided cases were also destroyed. Nearly four months after the violent protest, around 8,000 case files of active cases have been recovered. The top court has established 28 dedicated desks, one each for every department, for the recovery of the destroyed files.
As per the Supreme Court records, high courts and district courts lost close to 11,000 files of cases under consideration. The number of files of already decided cases stood at 706,071.