Kathmandu, November 22
The Supreme Court has endorsed justices’ decision to introduce a new system of assigning cases by drawing lots.
The amendment to the Supreme Court regulations has been published in the government’s official gazette on Monday. With this, the new system will come into effect.
A meeting of the apex court justices last week had decided to introduce the new system.
The new system would curtail significant rights of not just incumbent Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana, who has been accused of partiality of late, but any other chief justice in the future also.
As per the new system, the chief justice, from now onwards, cannot assign cases to justices and their benches as he pleases. Instead, there will be a lot-drawing system to decide which justice will hear which cases.
One of the many accusations that Chief Justice Rana has been facing currently is he has been assigning political cases to justices close to him so as to issue a verdict in the party’s favour from which he can demand undue benefits.
Despite the introduction of the new system, the Nepal Bar Association, the umbrella organisation of Nepali lawyers, however, is unlikely to end its protests without Rana resigning.
