Kathmandu, December 11

Twenty-seven additional judges of the appellate courts, who were expecting the Judicial Council to extend their tenure, will retire tomorrow, as the Judicial Council is in no mood to extend their tenure.

Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Agni Prasad Kharel told THT that an informal meeting of the Judicial Council was held here today but the process to extend the tenure of the 27 additional judges could not move ahead.

“It was not possible to extend the tenure of these judges and I feel sad about it,” Kharel added.

Among the 27 additional judges are Rameshwar Nath Amatya, Bimal Prasad Dhungel, Sahdev Prasad Bastola, Mahendra Raj Gautam, Awadh Bihari Prasad Sinha, Ramesh Kumar Pokharel, Saroj Prasad Gautam, Rajendra Kumar Pokharel, Agni Prasad Thapaliya, Rishi Ram Dawadi, Kedar Paudel, Ishwari Prasad Ghimire, Nityanand Pandey, Rajeshwar Tiwari, Dinesh Prasad Yadav, Krishna Lal Bhattarai, Nar Bahadur Shahi, Shanti Singh Thapa, Narayan Prasad Shah, Jagannath Mahato Singh, Tej Bahadur Rai, Yamuna Bhattarai, Nand Lal Mahato Tharu, Manoj Kumar Sharma, Sarita Sharma, Nilam Paudel and Anita Manandhar Joshi.

Additional Judge Awadh Bihari Prasad Sinha told THT over phone from Birgunj that the additional judges had been telling Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha, who chairs the JC, to extend their tenure or make them permanent judges but the chief justice kept telling them that the new constitution did not allow the same.

Sinha said the constitutional provision stated that the appellate court judges would work as judges of the high courts once such courts were formed under the new constitution and, hence, there was no constitutional hurdle to extend the tenure of the additional judges or make them permanent judges. “High courts will be formed probably after a year and if these additional judges’ term is not extended or if they are not made permanent judges, how could they work as high court judges?” Sinha wondered.

He said the JC’s decision not to extend the tenure of the additional judges of the appellate courts was against the spirit of the new constitution and they could challenge that in the court. “We may challenge the JC’s decision not to extend our tenure,” Sinha said.

These judges were appointed two and a half years ago.

Their term was for one year initially but it was extended twice first for one year and then for six months. Their extended term ends tomorrow.