Kathmandu, July 26
A three-member ‘full’ bench in the Supreme Court has decided to forward an appeal registered by the government seeking a revision to the verdict that commuted a 20-year jail sentence of former Armed Police Force officer Ranjan Koirala to eight-and-a-half years to further hearing.
A bench of justices Bam Kumar Shrestha, Prakash Kumar Dhungana, and Kumar Regmi made the decision in response to the appeal filed last week.
(Updated at 2:00 pm)
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Ranjan Koirala sentence: Three-member bench assigned to check acceptance of govt appeal for revision
Kathmandu, July 26
The Supreme Court has formed a three-member ‘full’ bench to decide whether an appeal registered by the government seeking a revision to the verdict that commuted a 20-year jail sentence of former Armed Police Force officer Ranjan Koirala to eight-and-a-half years.
Earlier last month, a division bench of Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana and Justice and Justice Tej Bahadur KC had handed down a verdict that Koirala, convicted of killing his wife Gita Dhakal in 2012 January, could be released after completing eight years and a half in prison though the Kathmandu District Court had sent him to prison for 20 years and the then Appellate Court had upheld it.
Implementing the verdict, the Dillibajaar Jail in Kathmandu released him last week, but the government filed an appeal for revision on the same day, claiming the decision to cut short the sentence contrasted the court’s own precedents that sentences in such serious cases could not be revised.
A bench of justices Bam Kumar Shrestha, Prakash Kumar Dhungana, and Kumar Regmi will decide if the government appeal would be forwarded to hearing today.
Meanwhile, members of the public have already begun demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Rana, accusing him of failing to deliver justice rightly.
