Kathmandu, June 27: Nepal's Supreme Court has ordered the government to take steps to maintain the integrity of the country's international borders, after two advocates alleged India is surreptitiously encroaching on Nepalese territory, a court official said. "India is alleged to have replaced the Nepal-India boundary pillars unilaterally in different regions along the 1,400 km joint border over the past several years," the advocates said in a petition to the court.

This had changed the Nepal-India border demarcation envisaged under the 1815 Sugauli treaty signed between Nepal and the then British rulers, they claimed.

A Supreme Court special bench consisting of justices Hari Prasad Sharma, Dilip Kumar Poudel and Khil Raj Regmi issued a writ ordering the government "to preserve the country's territorial integrity," the court official said.

The writ also forbids the government to "sign any border treaty against the country's interest."

"The Supreme Court has asked the government to be serious about maintaining its international boundaries without affecting its territorial integrity," the official said.

The Supreme Court, however, quashed two other petitions filed by historians demanding that the government take steps to retrieve territories lost under the 1815 Sugauli treaty.

Under the treaty, Nepal lost virtually one third of its total territories, the petitioners claimed.

Bureau Report