KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court has directed the government not to treat COVID-19 care expenses as confidential.

Citing that the provisions under the Right to Information, the SC directed the government to provide the details of COVID-19 expenses to the individuals who seek it.

The Constitution of Nepal and the prevalent Act related to the Right to Information hail that everyone has the right to information in the issues of public concern.

The detailed text of the mandamus that came from SC on July 9 was made available on Monday.

After hearing on the writ filed by advocate Kirtinag Sharma, Manish Kumar Shrestha and others, the court had directed the government not to treat the coronavirus expense details as confidential as it comes under the category of the case related with public concern.

The mandamus was issued by the Joint Bench of Justice Ananda Mohan Bhattarai and Hari Prasad Phuyal on July 9.

Many people including the leaders from the ruling Nepal Communist Party(NCP), main opposition party Nepali Congress(NC) among many others had gone skeptic about the expense details the government offered under the COVID-19 prevention, control and treatment headings and had smelt foul in it.

Making the expenses made for coronavirus pandemic prevention, control and treatment till June 3, the government claimed that 9.87 billion had been spent for it till then. The government details showed that 6.3 billion had been spent by the Federal Government whereas the Province and Local levels had spent 1.8 billion and 2.76 billion for coronavirus prevention, control and treatment programs launched till then.