How can find the case law or precedent in Nepal

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Case law is considered an important source of law, particularly in the common law system. It is influenced by English Law. Case law also known as precedent or judges made law.

In common law, case law governs the impact court decisions have on future cases. Dissimilar to most civil law systems, common law systems follow the principle of stare decisis in which lower courts generally make verdicts consistent with previous decisions of higher courts.

Case law is considered a primary source of law. The official legal documents that actually state the laws of the country. For instance, constitution, statutes, regulations, and court opinions. Secondary sources of law are discussed, analyze, and interpreted of the primary source. This commonly provides commentary and background information on the primary sources of law.

It is important to know about the legality and utility of the published case law. The judges, lawyers, researchers, law students, and other jurists should know where the case law has been published and reported.

Case laws reported and published both official and unofficial versions in Nepal, unofficial version case laws are only reprinted or as per official reports. They are following place of case law reports in Nepal;

1. Official Version:  

An official report is selected, designated, and published by an authoritative agency or government authority. Though, the terms ‘official’ does not point to the quality or accuracy of the case law report. In Nepal official report published and owned by the Supreme Court of Nepal. There is the only authority for publishing the case law report decided by the supreme court of Nepal.

Editing and Publishing Committee of the Supreme Court of Nepal is selected and published in a series of books. The series of books are;

Nepal Kanoon Patrika,

Supreme Court Bulletin,

Supreme Court Judgment Collection.

Official reports take a long time to publish an inbound volume, so it is quite unpopular basically for legal researchers because they are concerned to use current information in their research.

• Nepal Kanoon Patrika

Nepal Kanoon Patrika is also known as NKP, is published monthly and the last issue of every year of this publication contains monthly reported cases in the insignificant index.  The Editing and Publishing committee selected and passed by the board for the publishing. The full text of decision or verdict published with ratio decidendi as precedent in the Nepal Kanoon Patrika.

Nepal Kanoon Patrika also available in the online version at www.nkp.gov.np. You can find and search by the case number, party’s name, judge’s name, case type, and many more search options available on this website.

• Supreme Court Bulletin

This fortnightly published bulletin contains only the ratio decidendi. The publication is organized concurrence of the hierarchy of the bench i.e. full bench decision, a division bench, and a single bench.

• Electronic version

The Supreme Court of Nepal has its own website (www.supremecourt.gov.np), in this website judgments are kept.

• Collection of Supreme Court Judgment

This collection contains the judgment of the full bench of the Supreme Court and it has comprised of decisions made by Supreme Court during the 2029-2030 B.S. It was published once only.

• Collection of Supreme Court Judgment

It has 1-25 series. After the 20th series, it has started to publish on different topics.

• Supreme Court Landmark Decision

The Landmark decisions propounded on the constitutional issues are published.

Unofficial Version:  

The terms “official” and “unofficial” do not indicate the quality or accuracy of the report. Both forms of publication include cases. There are some prominent authors who are quite ahead to publish the decision made by Supreme Court on a different topic. i.e. Supreme Court’s judgment on constitutional issues. Nazeer Kosh, Nazeer Sar Sangraha. These unofficial reports contain everything of the official report, plus some helpful editorial features added by the publishers. These unofficial publications are very popular among legal researchers in the Nepalese legal field because they are publishing too quickly. These publications can be located by following publications:

Individual Publication

1.            Narendra Prasad Pathak: His publications are published in the name of Nazeer Kosh in three volumes:-Nazeer Kosh (part one): Includes decision between 2015 to 2053 BS; Nazeer Kosh (complementary) (part two): Includes decision between 2053 to 2055 BS; Nazeer Kosh (part three): Decision between 2055 to 2058 BS are included.
2.            Narendra Prasad Pathak & Narendra Prakash Khanal: There is three publication by their joint afford.
3.            Niranya Sar Kosh: It includes Supreme Court reported all cases (Kanoon Patrika) decision between 2015 to 2060 and case can be found by the subject index in alphabetical order or decision number of Supreme Court or by the name of litigant name in alphabetical order.
4.            Gauri Bahadur Karki: Nazeer Sar Sangraha – In this publication, decisions are included from 2015 to 2058 BS, and cases are organized by the case index (both litigant names) in alphabetical order, famous case index in alphabetical order, and the precedent index in alphabetical order.
5.            Rajendra Prasad Bhattarai – Collection of Precedent: It has published decisions made by Supreme Court up to 2015 B.S.
6.            Ram Prasad Bhandari “Sambhava” – Collection of Precedent on Fraud: It has published the precedent particularly fraud issues.

• Institutional Publication

1. i) Summon Publication –Collection of Supreme Court decision: This publication has got right to publish the decisions made by the Supreme Court up to 2015 BS.
2. ii) Nepal Law Society:
3. a)     Compilation of the decisions by the Supreme Court of Nepal on Habeas Corpus: It was published in cooperation with USAID Nepal.
4. b) Compilation of the decisions on the election by the Supreme Court of Nepal:It was also published in cooperation with USAID Nepal.
5. c)     Compilation of the decisions on Local Governance by Supreme Court of Nepal.
6. ii) Pro-Public

The decision related to gender issue: incorporated made by Supreme Court, Appellate Court and District Court. It is published incorporation with UN/FEM-Nepal.

Supreme Court publishes Nepal Kanoon Patrika the case decision made by the Supreme Court but these are not being published immediately after the decision made by the Supreme Court.