Valley
JC won’t revise names of SC justice nominees: Dhungana
The Judicial Council will not revise the names of the judges recommended for the position of permanent Supreme Court justices, JC member Khem Narayan Dhungana has said.According to Dhungana, the judges nominated for the SC permanent justice post were picked after an extensive study. He added that all the nominated judges fit the the criteria and are capable of undertaking the responsibilities required of them.
“The Judicial Council will stand by its decision,” Dhungana said during an interaction organised at the Reporters Club in the capital on Friday.
Such statement from Dhungana comes a day after a meeting of the Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee decided to request a copy of the JC’s decision to recommend eight names for the post of SC permanent justices within next three days, a move that was prompted after 22 complaints were
filed against the SC justice nominees.
The complaints range from the nominees indulging in financial irregularities to their lack of upholding good moral character.
Some of the nominees were even recommended for disciplinary action by the SC in the past.
Senior SC Justice Ram Kumar Shah, also the member of the JC, had also registered note of dissent against two of the nominees—Govinda Upadhya and Deepak Raj Joshi— on April 23. Joshi, according to Shah, does not have adequate knowledge to become eligible for the job of SC justice and that he had been reprimanded by the SC in the past for releasing convicts from jail.
Among other opponents of the JC’s nomination include Nepal Bar Association Chairman Hari Krishna Karki. He has accused that the JC, in collusion with “tainted” nominees, sidelined the “qualified” judges who could have added their professional values in the job.
A majority of the 73-member hearing committee had called for obtaining the copy of the JC’s decision and the note of dissent.
They had also sought additional time to study those complaints.