Valley courts will re open on sunday from July 16 Kathmandu, July 2 - The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to scrap the Sunday holiday being observed since 1994 in the courts of the Kathmandu Valley with effect from July 16. The decision taken by the Full Bench on Friday has ended the decade-long Sunday holiday practice exercised by the courts in the three districts of the Valley - Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. In July 1994, a Full Bench had set Sunday as holiday for Valley-based courts "as a symbol of judicial independence". The decision is learned to have been taken "to bring uniformity in holidays" among courts in the country, and to accommodate the "frequent urgings" from government officials to remove the Sunday holiday so as to bring about uniformity in the holiday system between the judiciary and the executive. The executive had taken a similar decision some three months ago, ending the Sunday holiday practice in government offices based in the Valley. Debate over Sunday holiday in Valley-based courts had surfaced at the time the executive scrapped the holiday. A proposal was presented then before the Full Court, the apex policy making body of the judiciary, but was "put on hold" as some judges sought for the logic behind the change. A justice talking to the Post said, "We passed the removal of the Sunday holiday as Chief Justice Hari Prasad Sharma told the Full Court that government secretaries and lawyers had frequently complained to him about the inconveniences so caused." Supreme Court spokesperson, Dr Ram Krishna Timalsena, however, said that the decision was taken as per the judiciary authority to set its holiday on its own according to the need of the time. He rejected the notion of government influence in the decision. The Supreme Court Regulations give authority to the Full Court to change its holiday

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