KATHMANDU Mar 14: Chief Justice Gopal Prasad Parajuli today assigned benches for justices excluding Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana who had withdrawn himself from the bench on Monday.
CJ Parajuli on Monday had denied a bench to Justice Rana. Earlier this week, CJ Parajuli had formed a seven-member extended full bench on Monday. However, on Tuesday, Justice Rana had withdrawn himself from the bench.
CJ Parajuli denies bench for Justice Rana
CJ Parajuli set a single bench to himself too. Yesterday's he shared a division bench with Justice Tej Bahadur Kc.
On Tuesday, eight justices, comprising Deepak Raj Joshi and Prakash Singh Raut, Aananda Mohan Bhattarai and Ishwor Prasad Khatiwoda, Sapana Malla Pradhan and Hari Krishna Bhattarai, Anil Kumar Sinha and Bishwambhar Prasad Shrestha did not attend their respective court after CJ Parajuli formed twelve benches to conduct the hearing.
Following the contempt of court cases against Dr Govinda KC and Kantipur daily’s manager and journalist, Justice Rana boycotted the bench questioning it is against moral principles and legal provisions to sit on bench formed by Parajuli.
Majority at a full-court meeting in the Supreme Court on Monday has suggested to Chief Justice Gopal Prasad Parajuli to stop working at the apex court and not to assign any cases to justices due to questions raised against his eligibility and integrity of justice delivery by him. They suggested him to hand over the responsibility to senior-most justice Deepak Raj Joshi.