KATHMANDU, JANUARY 20
The Judges Society Nepal led by Supreme Court Justice Ishwar Prasad Kahtiwada has issued a press release, expressing dissatisfaction over new pay scale fixed by the government for judges.
JSN said its attention was drawn to the government's decision to fix judges monthly salary. The decision was published in Nepal gazette yesterday. JSN said although judges were getting a slightly higher salary than their counterparts in civil service between 1991 and 2016, the government started reducing judges' salary arbitrarily compared to civil servants.
JSN said that it could not accept the new salary fixed for them and they would rather continue to accept only the old pay scale that they received before January 19. It has asked the government to immediately withdraw its decision related to judges' pay and form a judicial pay scale commission to determine salaries of judges.
The new pay scale was issued in the Nepal gazette yesterday. "We take this as the height of the government's arbitrariness and a brutal attack on judges' pride and dignity," the JSN stated in its release.
It said that between 1991 and 2015, district court judges' pay scale was higher than that of a first class civil servant. In 2016-17 fiscal a district court judge's monthly salary was Rs 36,890, whereas the monthly salary of a first-class officer of civil service was Rs 36,720. In 2016/17 fiscal, high court judges' monthly salary was Rs 43,670, whereas special class officer of the government got Rs 43,130. In 2016/17 fiscal, the monthly salary of chief judges of high courts Rs 46,220, whereas the salary of chief secretary of the government was Rs 45,270. The JSN said the government had been reducing judges' pay scale since 2016/17 fiscal without any reasonable ground.
It said the government had fixed the monthly pay scale of district judges from 2023/24 fiscal at Rs 64,895 and a first-class civil servant's salary at Rs 70,038. District court judges are getting Rs 5,143 less than first class civil servants.
From the current fiscal the government has fixed the high court judges' monthly salary at Rs 76,383 and that of special class officers' at Rs 76,888.
Chief Judges of high courts get a monthly salary of Rs 80,707, whereas the chief secretary gets 82,359.
The JSN said that the government had not fulfilled its statutory obligation of reviewing judges' salary in consultation with the chief justice every three years.
It stated in its release that the acts governing judges' pay and perks provisioned for the review of judges' salary by the government in consultation with the chief justice as that was necessary to protect impudence of judiciary.
"We feel that the government, without bothering to consult the Supreme Court, is arbitrarily continuing its ad hoc policy of increasing judges' salary marginally, whereas other government employees have got pay considerable hike," the JSN stated in its release.
The JSN said the government had been unfairly fixing district and high court judges' pay scale since 2016/17 fiscal and the SC full court had repeatedly reminded the government about that, yet the government had not taken any step to correct the pay scale.
The JSN said it had submitted a memorandum to the then minister of law, justice, and parliamentary affairs Govinda Bandi and former minister of communications and information technology Gyanendra Karki and was expecting a positive response on their concerns, but the government continued the same old policy of unfair pay scale for judges.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 21, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
