The Supreme Court on Monday resolved a long-standing dispute over the expansion of the main road of Birgunj Metropolitan City, clearing the way for work that had been stalled for nearly two decades.

A division bench of Justices Binod Sharma and Mahesh Sharma Poudel dismissed all five writ petitions, allowing the Division Road Office in Hetauda to proceed with widening the main road by 25 metres on both sides.

The 28th hearing of the case began last Tuesday, continued on Wednesday, and concluded with the dismissal of all petitions, according to Dhan Bahadur Thapa, a lawyer representing the metropolitan side.

Advocates Ishwar Baral and Subhash Pokharel also represented the city, while a team of experts, including senior advocate Shambhu Thapa, argued on behalf of the petitioners.

The litigation had blocked the road expansion work along the Tribhuvan Highway from Gandak Chowk to Power House Chowk, Ghantaghar, Adarsha Nagar, Rajatjayanti Chowk, and Shankaracharyadwar to Miteripul (friendship bridge linking Nepal and India). The first writ petition was filed in September, 2019 by Laxman Sah Rauniyar and others to halt the project. Subsequent petitions were registered by Rajkumari Devi Tulsyan in January, 2020, Bharat Prasad Rauniyar in February, 2021, Birendra Kumar Sanghai in November, 2019 and Bikram Gurung in November, 2018.

The first hearing, during which a show cause order was issued, took place on September 25, 2019. Although the Road Division Office, Hetauda, and the Birgunj-Pathalaiya Road Expansion Project were ready to expand the road after Chhath in 2019, landlords along the main road had blocked the work.

After the 15-day notice expired in September 2019, the project office set a new deadline, urging landowners to demolish their structures themselves. During this period, one phase of the road expansion survey work was completed.

While cities along other stretches of the Tribhuvan Highway—Pathlaiya, Simara, Jitpur, and Parwanipur—have seen roads widened by 25 metres on both sides and upgraded to six lanes, the central stretch in Birgunj remained neglected. The dilapidated condition of buildings along the highway has affected the city’s overall appearance.

The Tribhuvan Highway section from Ghantaghar to the Nepal-India border is heavily congested, frequently facing traffic jams and parking problems. Most residents of Birgunj have expressed support for the immediate completion of the road expansion, citing the urgent need to improve both traffic flow and the city’s appearance.

The Birgunj-Pathalaiya Road Expansion Project is ready to accelerate the widening work once it receives a “clean chit” from the Supreme Court. Mayor Rajeshman Singh of Birgunj Metropolitan City has publicly stated that he will not oppose the project, provided the expansion is carried out according to the standards set by the Government of Nepal.

With the Supreme Court’s ruling, the expansion of Birgunj’s main road is finally set to move forward, ending decades of delays that have hindered traffic management and urban development in the city.