KATHMANDU, August 6

Nepal Bar Association on Thursday nominated senior advocate Ram Prasad Shrestha as its representative to the Judicial Council.

As per the law, NBA sends one member to the JC led by the Chief Justice.

The NBA which was supposed to nominate a lawyer to the JC immediately after its nominee Upendra Keshari Neupane resigned from the post of JC member in January this year, nominated Shrestha on Thursday.

NBA’s delay in nominating its member to the JC had led to delay in the appointment of judges in the higher courts, particularly the Supreme Court, which has over 22,000 cases to dispose.

Shrestha, a leftist lawyer, was elected by a democratic panel-dominated NBA. According to NBA Secretary General Sunil Kumar Shrestha, Ram Prasad Shrestha received 10 votes against his rival Babu Raja Joshi’s six votes.

Joshi was backed by the Gopal Krishna Ghimire-led Democratic Lawyers Association (DLA).

Another democratic candidate senior advocate Beni Bahadur Karki got zero vote.  NBA President Hari Krishna Karki, who holds the decisive votes did not have to take part in the voting process.

According to an NBA source, three democratic panel office bearers — advocates Mohan Ingnam, Prasanna Krishna Das and Binita Karki voted for Shrestha.

Binita Karki did not even vote for her father Beni Bahadur.

NBA has nine executive members from the democratic panel and eight from the left panel.

DLA Chair Ghimire said these three democratic office bearers of NBA won the election in the lawyers’ umbrella body with the support of DLA, but they defied the association’s norm and supported a communist lawyer.

“We will take action against them,” Ghimire added.

Advocate Binita, however, said three democratic lawyers who supported Shrestha were loyal to the Bharat Kharel-led DLA and it would make no difference if  the Ghimire-led DLA took punitive action against them.

Binita said she did not vote for her father to show to her detractors that  she had not been lobbying to make her father a JC member.