• APPOINTMENTS TO CONSTITUTIONAL BODIES
KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 29
Chairperson of Constitutional Lawyers' Forum-Nepal Dinesh Tripathi and office bearers of the organisation today met Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana and urged him to ensure that hearing of writ petitions filed against appointments to constitutional bodies bypassing parliamentary hearing resume soon.
The hearing on cases filed against the appointments in different constitutional bodies by Senior Advocate Dinesh Tripathi and Advocate Om Prakash Aryal remains stalled as a single bench of Justice Hari Prasad Phuyal issued a stay order against the hearing, arguing that the question of CJ presiding over the bench must be resolved first.
Justice Phuyal had issued the interim order on September 2 after a lawyer filed a case challenging CJ Rana's decision to recuse himself from the case. CJ Rana had recused himself from the case after the petitioners cited conflict of interest on the ground that CJ Rana was among the members of the Constitutional Council that had nominated different people in constitutional bodies and he was also one of the defendants in the case.
Advocate Om Prakash Aryal and Senior Advocate Dinesh Tripathi had challenged the appointments made in constitutional bodies through ordinance that amended the Constitutional Council's rule lowering the quorum for holding Constitutional Council meeting and for taking decisions.
Senior Advocate Tripathi said they told CJ Rana that delay in adjudication of the case filed against the appointments in the constitutional bodies had created a situation where people appointed illegally continued to hold office.
The KP Sharma Oli government had appointed 52 people - 32 people as per the first ordinance issued on December 15, and 20 people as per the second ordinance issued May 4.
Senior Advocate Tripathi said that the Supreme Court's decision to declare KP Sharma Oli government's move dissolving the House of Representatives twice unconstitutional had enhanced people's faith in the judiciary, but delay in the adjudication of the cases filed against the appointments in constitutional bodies had disappointed the public.
CLaF also urged the CJ to implement the report submitted by a committee led by Justice Hari Krishna Karki. The report urged the SC and other courts to go for automation to prepare daily cause list. Tripathi said that the court faces accusation that the current method of preparing the list was faulty as certain cases could be easily assigned to certain judges.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 30 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
