Kathmandu, March 14

The Supreme Court today issued an interim order in the name   of Speaker Onsari Gharti Magar and the Parliament Secretariat telling them not to do anything that could adversely impact the decision taken by the Judicial Council to nominate 11 Supreme Court justices on March 1.

A single bench of Justice Jagadish Sharma Paudel passed the order in response to a writ petition filed by Jyoti Baniya, chair, Forum for Consumers’ Protection.

The court also observed that the letter sent by the Parliament Secretariat on March 6 was prima facie wrong.

Parliament Secretariat had stated in the letter that since there was no Parliamentary Hearing Committee and Parliamentary Regulations, the hearings for the 11 newly nominated SC justices cannot be conducted.

The apex court has also ordered the defendants to conduct the parliamentary hearings for the newly nominated justices as per the constitution.

The court also observed that the JC’s decision to nominate SC justices and send the names to the Parliament Secretariat for conducting parliamentary hearing was not against the constitution and prevailing laws.

The apex court also said that although the Parliament Secretariat stated that it was sending the JC’s nomination back to the constitutional bodies, the letter did not state on which legal ground the Speaker made that decision.

The Supreme Court observed that as per Article 153 of the constitution, the Judicial Council was in existence and the requirement of the quorum had already been fulfilled, as there were three members in the constitutional body.

The court said as per constitutional provisions, newly nominated justices had to be confirmed by the Parliamentary Hearing before their appointment and forming a Parliamentary Hearing Committee was the duty of the Parliament and the Speaker.

Earlier, Speaker Onsari Gharti organised a press conference in which she said her decision to send the Judicial Council’s nomination of 11 Supreme Court justices back to the JC was blown out of proportion.

Before the press conference, she met Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha.

She said when she wrote to the Judicial Council informing the constitutional body that the hearing for the newly nominated justices could not be conducted in the absence of Parliamentary Hearing Committee and Parliamentary Regulations, she only stated facts of the process and people should not have read too much into her letter.

“We need to move towards a resolution now,” Gharti said and added that she wrote a letter to the JC as the prime minister had withdrawn the nomination of Judicial Council C nominee (Ram Prasad Sitaula) and the Nepal Bar Association had refused to nominate its representatives to the JC citing lack of Parliamentary Hearing Committee and Parliamentary Regulations.

The Speaker said she was committed to playing a neutral role without favouring any side and it was up to the Parliamentary Hearing Committee to determine who was eligible and who was not.

The Speaker added that although some old parliamentary panels were working now as before, there was a view that for conducting hearings for constitutional posts, a new Parliamentary Hearing Committee should be formed.