Services at the judiciary have been affected after an incident of a court staffer being manhandled by an advocate escalated into a full-fledged dispute between the Nepal Bar Association and civil servants.

On Wednesday, Amir Lamichhane, an advocate, had allegedly punched Premika Tamang, a non-gazetted officer at the District Court, Lalitpur, after the latter refused to give him a written copy of a court order. She sustained injuries to her mouth. Lamichhane was arrested by the police the next day, based on a complaint by Tamang.

Following a call from the umbrella bodies of civil servants, employees at all courts stopped work until 1.30 pm on Sunday demanding stern government action against the assaulter.

On Sunday itself, the association attempted to broker an agreement between Tamang and Lamichhane. When the attempts at an amicable settlement failed, the association submitted a complaint at the District Police Office, Lalitpur against Tamang and Bishnu Prasad Pandey, registrar at the district court.

“We have found that the scuffle happened after Tamang demanded a bribe to allow Lamichhane to see the court order. It was also Tamang who started misbehaving with Lamichhane,” Gopal Krishna Ghimire, chairperson of the association, told the Post. “Pandey, in an attempt to protect his staff, has deleted the CCTV footage. So we have filed a complaint against both of them.”

Ghimire said they will launch protests across the country if the police do not investigate Tamang and Pandey. As a counter to the pen-down strike of the civil servants in the first half of Sunday, the lawyers did not work in the second half of the day.

Talking to the Post, Pandey said the association had unnecessarily stretched the matter. “It is an issue between Tamang and Lamichhane. However, I, along with the entire court administration, have been dragged into the dispute,” said Pandey, adding the computer hard disk that recorded the court CCTV footage remains defunct for the past two months.

He said on April 23 that he had written to the Supreme Court, seeking financial support to replace the hard disk. “I have noticed that the CCTV has not been working for more than two months. The allegations that I deleted the footage are baseless,” he said.

The hearings of hundreds of cases were affected on Sunday due to the protest by the civil servants and lawyers.

Ghimire said they will come up with stern protests, if the administration doesn’t take the complaints against Tamang and Pandey seriously.

“Our protest is also against the deep-rooted corruption in the judiciary,” said Ghimire.

Civil servants say they don’t want to hamper the services any longer as the accused has been booked. “As the complaints have already been lodged, we expect necessary action will be taken against the assaulter. We will be compelled to undertake stern protests, if he is protected under any pretext,” said a joint statement from four associations of the civil servants affiliated to different political parties.