The District Court in Morang has instructed the people’s elected representatives in the district to bar the convicts from receiving any state facilities and services if the local units are not abiding by the court’s verdicts.

As a huge number of court rulings have been left unimplemented, the district court has issued the instruction, said court officials.

Judge Krishna Murari Siwakoti said that a meeting of the district judicial sector coordination committee on Tuesday decided not to provide any state facilities to absconding convicts.

“We asked the elected representatives not to provide any facilities from the local government to the convicts who are at large. We urged the representatives to tell the fugitives to clear the court’s fine or serve the prison term first to avail of government services,” said Siwakoti.

The district court called the representatives of all 17 local bodies in the district, police administration and the district land revenue office at the meeting and provided them with the list of the convicts at large, according to Siwakoti.

“We will soon publish and broadcast the names of the absconding fugitives in the media,” he said.

This is the first time that a district court has taken such a measure to implement its decisions.

According to Indra Shrestha, an officer at the ruling implementation unit at the court, 5,448 people who have to serve their jail terms or pay fines are still at large. The absconding convicts should serve a total of 4,241 years in jail, and pay fines totalling around Rs252.3 million to the court.

The court has provided a detailed list of the fugitives of each local body in the district with their jail terms and penalties. Chief Judge of the district court Medani Prasad Paudel said that the local body has the responsibility to help implement the court verdicts.

During the meeting, the people’s representatives expressed their full support in implementing the court’s verdicts. “We will extend our full support for the implementation of the court’s ruling,” said Biratanagar Mayor Bhim Parajuli.

He assured that his metropolis would not provide any services and facilities to those found guilty by the court if they did not abide by the verdict.