KATHMANDU: Senior advocate-turned Supreme Court Justice Bharat Raj Upreti today revealed that he experienced what he called “suffocation” in the apex court and said he was shocked to see the “behaviour” of justices there.

“I have spent 14 months in the Supreme Court and I was shocked,” Upreti told a programme here. “I never felt earlier that the apex court justices have such culture of bossiness and it suffocated me,” he added.

According to Upreti, the SC justices do not even wear their coats without the help of their orderlies and are “insensitive” about delivering prompt justice.

“As a junior justice of the SC, I have developed negative feelings for the senior judges whom I

wait for hours on end to join a bench for hearing, but the

so-called senior justices spent hours smoking cigarettes inside their chambers,” he added. Uprety, however, did not give the senior justices’ names.

Upreti was speaking at a programme on the role of judiciary on economic development jointly organised by the Judges’ Society and Forum for Legal Research and Development. In the programme, his book ‘Karaar Kanoon’ (Law of Contract) was released by Chief Justice Anup Raj Sharma, who is also the first lawyer-turned Chief Justice.

“I started writing the book after the goings-on in the court shocked me,” Upreti said.

The justice also alleged that apex court justices are not worried about delivering quick justice as, according to him, they have been unable to settle finance-related disuptes even after six, seven years of the cases being filed. They were supposed to decide on the cases within three months, he added.

Saying that the judiciary is still running with an “old mindset,” he said it was always unable to meet the verdict deadlines.