KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday stayed the government’s decision to lift a ban on the land plotting.

A single bench of Justice Sushmalatha Mathema issued a short-term interim order not to implement the decision.

Hearing the writ petition filed by advocates Santosh Bhandari, Sujan Nepal and Nawaraj Pandey against the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, the apex court summoned both the petitioners and the defendants for discussions.

A meeting of the Ministry had lifted the ban on the land plotting imposed three years ago.

However, the Ministry had clarified that the ban on the plotting of land was not wholly lifted yet, and it was working to streamline the plotting of land in the country.

The Ministry had made it clear that it intended to well-organize the plotting of land across the country based on the of Land Management Act, Land Use Act and the Local Government Operation Act-2074, among others.

The government in a bid to preserve the arable land across the country had decided in the meeting of the Council of ministers in 2017 to prohibit the fragmentation of the plotting of the land without permission from the concerned authorities.