June 21: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday issued an interim order in the name of the government not to implement its decision to stop issuing loan from banks and financial institutions by accepting land in collateral. The apex court order also overruled the government's decision to stop the sale of land plots without demarcation of land classified into different categories.

It may be noted that the government had issued the Land Use Regulation 2022 recently classifying land into different categories, thereby preventing the sale of land plots before categorizing lands for different purpose.

The Ministry of Land Management had written to its line agencies preventing the sale of land plots without determining the agricultural land and differentiating it from residential land. The government argued that it had issued the Land Use Regulation to protect the agricultural land where people are not allowed to build houses. This, however, has caused serious problems to the general public who need to acquire loans or to sell their land as the concerned bodies of the government are yet to demarcate the land.

Acting on a writ petition filed at the Supreme Court, a single bench of Justice Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada issued such order stating that stopping the loan disbursement will have an unfitting impact on the citizens’ fundamental rights.

As per the interim order, the government has been asked not to implement its decision until the case is settled.  The SC order states that the provision of loan imbursement from the banks and financial institutions should not be stopped as the classification of land by the government is not likely to happen soon.