A FIELD STUDY REPORT OF JANAKPUR

COURT VISIT

A field visit paper

Prepared for the partial fulfilment of the requirement of
[Link] First Year in the subject of clinical work

Submitted to
PU College of Law, Biratnagar
Purbanchal University

Submitted by
Name: - Nitesh Kumar Mandal
Roll no.: -34 Symbol no.: - 510065
[Link] First Year
Date of submission: -2081/01/04
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: -
I would like to acknowledge and extended my heartfelt gratitude PU college of law
teachers and staffs and student for guiding and exploring the knowledge through court
visiting.
I would also thanks to our respected Mr. Deepak Khatiwada sir, subjective teacher of
clinical works for his shared valuable knowledge, supervision, motivation and
encouragement. My special thanks go to Miss Nita pyakurel madam and Mr. Anjay sir for
their valuable guidance advices and suggestions during the court visit tour program.
I cannot remain giving thanks to Honourable judge Mr. Brajeet
Pyakurel, deputy secretary Mr. Kailash pd. Bhattarai and tehsildar Mrs. Nishi Jha and all
the staff members of district and high court of Janakpur for their valuable cooperation and
helping us by providing data and information.
Lastly, I am deeply grateful to my parents,
seniors and friends for all financial and moral support & encouragement.

-Nitesh Kumar Mandal

Table of Content: -
[Link] Topics Page number
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
01-02
1.2 Purpose of the visit
1.3 Court system in Nepal
1.4 Branches of Court 03
1.5 Court staff
1.6 Process of Hearing 04
2. Rational of the study
3. Limitation of the study 05
4. Methodology of the study
5. Data Analysis 06-09
6. Critical Analysis 09
7. Attainment
8. Conclusion 10
9. Suggestion or Recommendation
CHAPTER 1: - INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background
PU College of Law was established in 2075 B.S. as a Constituent college
of Purbanchal University. PU College of Law fosters academic studies in the field of
legal education in Nepal. The undergraduate law course at PU College of law is
intended to give a through grounding principles of law. PU College of law offers 5
years B.A.L.L.B & 3 years L.L.B programs. Its main aiming to transfer the legal
education to next level and set the standard in developing quality legal professionals.
It also focuses on the practical knowledge and community legal awareness such as
legal education.
Clinical work is an educational and experiential learning component of
legal education that allows law students to hands-on experience and develop practical
lawyering skills. Clinical works provide the students to gain a knowledge about
structure, procedures of the court. It helps the student to understand the impact of
laws in the society. It also helps to develop client dealing skill of lawyer or student.
The syllabus of BALLB first year in the law faculty of Purbanchal University consist
of field visit of court and report should be submitted by every student. Therefore, On
Bhadra 11, 2080 PU College of law provided golden opportunity to all its student of
first year of BALLB student to have a tour of Janakpur District and High court. I was
so excited and thrilled to have a tour of those places as it would gain my knowledge
about legal system.

1.2 Purpose of courts visit

The purpose of the visit was to understand the working of a court, the nature of duties
of the judicial officers. The visit was to help us understand the role of court to deliver
the justice in any cases, the role of prosecutors in a case, the way cases proceed in a
court, the way judges, prosecutor and defence lawyers handle the case, the
relationship of the prosecutors and the police. This gave us an opportunity to
understand the actual need of co-ordination in the four pillars of the criminal justice
system.
1.3 Courts system in Nepal
Courts are established to check whether the law making and implementation is in
accordance with the constitution and the law, to interpret the law & enforce the rights.
Court decides disputes between individual & the government in fair and independent.
Special provisions have been made in the constitution for the courts to function
impartially and independently.

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 Supreme
court

High court

District
court

Figure: - Hierarchy of court system in Nepal

The district court initiates the case and decisions. The party who is not satisfied with
the decision made by the district court can appeal to the high court. In general, if the
decision made in the district court is upheld by the High court, it cannot be appealed
to the supreme court except in special cases. The final decision of such a case is from
the appellate court.
However, if the decision made by the district court is invalid in whole
or partially by of the appellate court, the party who is not satisfied can appeal to the
supreme court. This is a general rule but some petitions can be directly appealed &
registered in the supreme court and proceed with the proceedings. It is called writ
Jurisdiction under extraordinary jurisdiction. Court will see application of the subject
such as Certiorari, Habeas corpus, Mandamus, Quo-Warranto & Prohibition i.e.
issued to the order and judgement. If a person’s civil rights are violated and
someone’s is imprisoned against the whose rights have been violated & who is in
illegal detention can be freed directly issue the order by the district courts.

Other courts system in Nepal

In addition to the courts and judicial bodies, various administrative offices and
officials have also been given the right to decide or make decisions like the courts
such bodies are called quasi- judicial bodies. The various departments and offices
under the various ministries of the Government of Nepal deal with cases within their
jurisdiction as determined by the law, so they are called quasi- judicial bodies. They
also have to go through some procedure as the court and make a decision.

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1.4 Branches of Courts

District court has following branches: -

Administration Branch: - under this branch there are staff administration section,
case registration section, map section, registration invoice section and administrative
section.
Issue branch: - under this branch, which is under the control of the supervisor, there
is provision to have the required number of case sections and deadline sections. When
setting up such a section, the ratio of the number of cases is adjusted, and a separate
section is established for the case of children, elderly, disabled, helpless people and
the cases of detainees in the required number.
Records branch: - under this branch, the custodian of records, has the required
number of civil numbers of civil and criminal records. Miesil and other records the
have been decided are kept in this branch.
Information technology branch: - this branch is responsible for regularizing and
managing the use of information technology in the court.
Accounting branch: - All financial transaction including budget, revenue collection,
cash bond records and their audits and verification are done by this branch. Other
branches are established based on workload.
Tahsil branch: - This branch main purpose is to implement decision made by judge.
It also includes Tahsil section, Asul tahsil section, Jinsi bond records and protection
section.
In addition to these branches, the High court also has an
appeal registration, petition branch, monitoring and inspection branch,
reporting branch, Maskewari branch.

Court Staff
 Judge: - a judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone
or as a part of a panel of judges.
 Registrar or srestedar: - The administrative responsibility of the court is the
registrar or srestedar. The administrative head of the supreme and High court
is called the Registrar and the administrative head of the district court is called
srestedar.
 Bench officer and other: - judges in the court are assisted by court officers
and court assistances in the performance of judicial duties.
 Tehsildar: - a tehsildar is a person who implement the decision.
 Advocate: - a person who pleads for a behalf of another or stands for a client
in a law court.

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Process of hearing of cases in Court: -
A case is registered in the court for settlement of any disputes. After the case is filed, the
court administers justice by following certain procedures. After completing all the work
required to understand the evidence according to the case, such as collecting evidence,
understanding witnesses, measuring maps, etc. It is also called hearing. After the
completion of the process determined by law, the case is said to have reached a stage and
the judges of the court decide the case based on the hearing. The place where the judge
hears the case is called IJALAS. In the district court, a one bench hears and decide while
in the HIGH Court, a 2-judge bench usually hears the case. In the High court, a bench
consisting of one judge is responsible for initiating proceedings or making orders. A
bench with one judge is called a one bench or one judge, a bench with two judges is
called a joint bench, a bench with three or more judges is called a special bench or full
bench.

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Rational of the study
It is essential for the faculty to conduct research-based field visit of court for sharpen the
skills of the students and to observe the judicial system through their own eye. Therefore,
I proudly assure you that this visit provided all the information and observation to the
students regarding the judicial system of the country. It is beneficiary because the
students gain first-hand experience of the legal system and gain knowledge about current
situation of legal system of the country. Moreover, it helps to develop observation skills in
the students.
This visit helped the students of first year to have real time interaction with the
individuals working on the courts, which may not be achieved by being in the classroom
or reading course-related books. Therefore, this visit helped to find the reality of facts and
observe what is just written in course- related books and compare whether the things
written in the course related books is applicable in real time practice or not.

Limitation of the study

This report of the field visit is related to the observation of the students of First year
students of PU College of Law of court and its daily practices, so this paper will be
mainly concentrated on observation-based study only. Therefore, the study is limited to
the extent of Janakpur High Court and District Court of Dhanusha District only.

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

While visiting the court and preparing the reports, we follow many methods but
basically there are two methods i.e. observation and interview method.
 Observational method: - my first method was observation. Firstly, when I entered
to court, I observe many things in court such as court structure system, judiciary
function, role of judges, advocate, and other staff members, security system,
administration and management system of court and many more.
 Interview method: - my second method of the study was interview. I and my
friends asked many questions and discussed about many more information related
to the court through judge, Registrar or shrestadar, and other officer of the court.

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DATA ANALYSIS
Court time of District and High court of Janakpur
[Link] Days Time
1. Sunday to Wednesday 10 am to 5 pm
2. Friday 10 am to 3 pm
3. Saturday Holiday

Weekly Cases practices in the court of Janakpur

[Link]. Days Type of Cases

1. Sunday to Monday Property related cases
2. Tuesday Writ application
3. Wednesday Case of Detention
4. Thursday Application of Detention
5. Friday Commercial cases, case related with election,
disputes related with property

Court fee while filling the case and petition

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 There was total seven benches and 38 cases were entry in high court of Janakpur
in that day
 Total no. of cases filled during month shrawan to Bhadra 480 cases
 There were 275 writ petitions filled among that 31-writ petition were
implemented.
 Among 700 civil cases, 150 cases of decision were declared and 72 cases were
judgement successfully.
 There was the system of Gola Pratha which is taken as a fair legal system for
distribution of cases. In that there were dice which represent in the form of
number (1,2,3,4,5…) kept in a small type of purse called Apardashi thaielo; they
used to distribute the cases according to seniority.
 There was a Registrar who used to codes the case & coding was done through the
symbols.
 If coding no. is repeated two times than there would be 2-benches and Registrar
would sign Wednesday or Friday within the group.
 Before hearing the cases, judges are fixed first i.e. Jodi-din (even day) & Bi-Jodi
din (odd day)
 If the Registrar is unavailable then judge will be looked Gola pratha system

 The solve cases District, High and Supreme court were published in website i.e.
[Link]

 For the safeguard of the privacy of the infant who were below 18 years both male
and female were facilities of Banda Ijilas.
 Government related cases were solved in 7 days.
 Total no. of cases =200 among them 70 cases were solved and 30 were pending in
district court of Janakpur.
 There were 8 Judges & 9 benches in district court.

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Case study-1
Name Laxmi Narayan Paswan
Age 40 years
Father name Ram Narayan Paswan
Mother name Lalita devi Paswan
Wife name Sarita devi Paswan
Address Janakpur-10, Dhanusha district
Education status of the offender Illiterate
Issue Exchange

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 Issue number 079-cp-0686

Case Study-2
Name Dipendra Yadav
Age 37 years
Father name Mukunda Yadav
Mother name Purnamasi Yadav
Wife name Sharmila Yadav
Address Janakpur, dhanusha district
Education status of the offender Literate
Issue Dowry death
Issue number 078-Crp-0755

Other Activities

The clinical work visit was for two days in the Janakpur. After visiting high court of
Janakpur, we also visited Ganga-Sagar Pond which is sacred place in Janakpur. We also
visited the Rajdevi Temple, Janakpur Temple and other religious place. During the
visiting of Dhanusha district, we observed, learned and performed various activities.

Critical Analysis
“Justice delayed is Justice denied”
The first and most problem is faced by Nepali Judiciary are speedy and fair trials. Almost
all the cases that were adjourned either due to lack of proper investigations or on the
appeal of the lawyers. In my two days of the visit Janakpur District and High Court, the
judgement was declared by the judges in only few cases which leads to increases the
burden in [Link], there is an urgent need to looks upon these problems.
The building of High court of Janakpur is too old. So there needs to maintained building
of high court. There is Negligence in security at the entrance gate of District court of
Janakpur.
While visiting from Biratnagar to Janakpur, we faced several problems such as buses of
the seat, long distance tour, language problem, short period of time, etc.
The walls of the court complex also had the marks of Tobacco splits and no penalty was
being imposed on the culprits.

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ATTAINMENT
This field visit helped in developing observation skill in students of first year of BALLB
of PU College of Law. Moreover, it helped to get interacted with staff and officials of
court. Students were able to observe and collect data about filing of report in the court,
how cases are registered in the court, how cases of many natures are handled by the court,
what are the rates of registering cases and rates for other procedures of cases, how cases
are solved. The above-mentioned objectives were also fulfilled throughout this visit. This
field visit increased knowledge about actual situations of courts, system or structured of
court, administrative structure, Missils, case list, allotment of cases and many other legal
knowledge.

CONCLUSION
On our visit to the court, I got the opportunity to learn form honourable Judges, Registrar
or Shrestadar, advocate and other official staff of District and High court of Janakpur. In
the entry of the gate there was tight security and every person enters in the court with the
rules and regulation. There were different branches like issue branch, administration
branch, tehsil branch, information branch, etc in the court. The court-room environment is
clean and silent as well as peace. The staff of the court were very co-operative and
helpful. I asked many questions related to the court system, structure of the court, how
legal proceeding is worked, court fee structure, daily activities of the court and many
more. This visit helped to gain a knowledge, objectives and experiences to get known
about court.

Suggestion or Recommendations
 There should not be much delay in giving the judgements of cases which lead to
increases the burden over the work of judiciary. They must do their work sincerely
and timely to get rid of this problem
 Parking system outside the court should be managed properly.
 Encouraged to Alternative Disputes Resolution (ADR)
 The visit is included in the syllabus of clinical work. Therefore, the campus
should set Budget for this kind of tour rather than students.
 The visit is only for two days. Therefor it should be one week which helps the
student to known about the court system, structure, function in deep way.

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