Kathmandu, March 6:

On one hand, King Gyanendra is yet to approve a recommendation of the Judicial Council for appointment of 31 judges to appellate courts. On the other, more than a dozen government joint attorneys have begun to lobby for appointment as judges in appellate courts.

Irked at being kept out in the cold, they recently pressed Attorney General Laxmi Bahadur Nirala to lobby Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Pudel and members of the Judicial Council. They claimed that while government attorneys have equal rights in the judiciary they don’t get equal opportunities for appointment as judges.

According to a source in the Judicial Council, about 50 posts of appellate court judges and an equal number of posts in district courts are lying vacant.

Joint government attorney Surya Koirala, Dilli Raman Acharya, Durga Bandhu Pokhrel, Rishi Ram Dawadi, Kumar Chundal, Yuba Raj Subedi, Kedar Paudel, Mahesh Thapa, Mohan Bahadur Karki, Saroj Gautam, Thok Prasad Siwakoti, Rajendra Subedi and Rajendra Pokhrel have urged the AG to lobby for them.

A government lawyer said the Judicial Council does not give sufficient importance to government lawyers while appointing judges to the Supreme Court or appellate courts. He also claimed the JC was discriminating against government lawyers. “Court officials and private lawyers get due importance but not the government lawyers,” he said.