DHANKUTA: The court's annual performance report showed that almost 50% of all new cases registered at Dhankuta District Court were for divorce, in fiscal year 2082/83. The statistics indicate that during the year the number of divorce cases filed with the court was the largest of any category of cases. During the fiscal year 759 new cases were registered with the Dhankuta District Court, of which 352 were divorce cases. This was the highest percentage of new filings of any type of case, including criminal and civil matters, and included almost half of all divorces. Additionally, the court heard 91 property partition cases, 31 cases of rape, 38 cannabis-related cases and 18 cases involving heroin and 17 other narcotics, and 15 marriage-related cases, according to the annual report. Others were attempts at rape, incest, and sexual harassment.
According to court officials, there are no specific causes of the excessive number of divorce cases in Dhankuta. They identified several contributing factors including, prolonged separation due to foreign employment, financial pressures, domestic violence, mistrust between partners, changing lifestyles of families, and the role of social media in family relationships.
Dhankuta District Court Judge Harish Chandra Ingnam stressed that the rise in divorce rates does not have to be considered as just an indicator of the breakdown of the family. According to him, there is also a possibility that the trend is due to increased awareness of legal rights, especially among women, who are now more willing to abandon harmful or difficult relationships and pursue legal protection and formal remedies. The court's statistics also show good case management performance. The Dhankuta District court in fiscal year 2082/83 disposed of 653 cases out of 759 registered cases, with a case-disposal rate of around 86 percent. This left 106 cases pending at the end of the fiscal year. The court will hear 721 cases this fiscal year, including pending cases from the previous year, and aims to resolve 477 cases.
The Dhankuta District Court also released its annual report, which reveals the trends of the law in the eastern region of Nepal, and divorce remains one of the top categories of cases being filed in court along with property disputes and criminal offences.
