With the change in the power equation, the process of appointing judges was stopped

Ajay Chaurasia has got the responsibility of Law Minister in the KP Sharma Oli government. As the matter is yet to be discussed with Minister Chaurasia, it is certain that the appointment process will be delayed. According to judicial council sources, the process is likely to be prolonged as some candidates have to do their homework from the beginning.

"Because the government changes every time when appointing, the process gets longer," said a member of the council.

Before Giri, Law Minister Dhanraj Gurung refused to appoint the former Chief Justice Harikrishna Karki saying that he needed time to study. After 15 months of vacancy, six judges were appointed in the first week of last December. After that, Giri of UML, who became the law minister in the changed power equation, 'took time to understand', now the post of 4 judges is vacant in the Supreme Court.

After a long homework, the process of appointing judges in all three levels of courts was started. For that, the council called a meeting on June 18 to appoint 35 vacant judges for the district court.

The list was also selected on the basis of seniority from among the officials of the court, government lawyers' group and law ministry. However, on the night of June 17, the day before the meeting, after a new alliance was formed between Congress and UML, Minister Giri refused to make a decision, and the meeting ended without a decision.

'It was not appropriate for me to make a decision of long-term importance after the decision to leave power at that time,' said former minister Giri. break On June 18, the appointment of 4 vacant judges in the Supreme Court was also going to be discussed in the meeting, in which the then Attorney General Dinmani Pokharel's name was also included, sources said. Sources claim that the council meeting could not proceed because the UML did not want to take Pokharel to the Supreme Court when the alliance itself had changed. According to the Council, there are currently 35 vacancies in the district, 4 in the Supreme Court and 10 in the High Court. Since the appointment process has to be explained to the new Law Minister from the beginning, it is seen that there will be more confusion for some time. If that happens, the vacant posts of judges in all three levels of courts will increase. There are currently 4 vacancies in the Supreme Court and two more judges will retire by October. Chief Justice Vishwambhar Prasad Shrestha, who is retiring in October due to age limit, will not sit on the bench from August. In that way, practically after a month, there will be 5 judges less in the Supreme Court. Another judge, Prakash Dhungana, who will retire in October, will not hear cases from October.

The number of pending cases in the Supreme Court is in the thousands as the judges are retiring one after the other. According to Govind Ghimire, Assistant Spokesperson of the Supreme Court, there are currently around 25,600 cases pending in the Supreme Court. This is almost five thousand less than last year. According to the experience of senior judge Anand Mohan Bhattarai, who retired last month, despite the Supreme Court's plan to reduce the number of cases, due to confusion in the appointment of judges, it was not achieved.

'A bench in the Supreme Court disposes of thousands of cases in a year, if there are less than four judges, two thousand cases and if there are less than six judges, at least three thousand cases can be prevented from being disposed of,' says Bhattarai. Being 21 is low in itself, on top of that, if you cannot appoint a case in time, you will not be able to solve the case quickly.'' . According to the council, 6 more judges will retire in the next 6 months in the districts and 5 judges will retire in the high court. If the appointment is not made by that time, the posts of 41 judges will be vacant in the district and 15 judges including one chief will be vacant in the high court. There are 112 thousand 940 cases in the district and 24 thousand 898 cases pending in the higher level. "Cases have increased by 20 percent in both the district and higher than last year," said Ghimire.