Chief Justice nominee Hari Krishna Karki will face a parliamentary hearing on Thursday.

A meeting of the Parliamentary Hearing Committee of the federal Parliament held on Monday decided to hold discussions with complainers on Wednesday and conduct the hearing the next day, according to Pashupati Shumsher Rana, who chaired the meeting as the oldest member of the joint parliamentary committee.

Over two dozen complaints have been lodged against chief justice nominee Karki claiming that he does not qualify to head the judiciary.

The Constitutional Council on May 8 nominated Karki, the seniormost justice at the Supreme Court, for the post of chief justice and forwarded his name to the parliamentary committee. On May 30, the committee had invited complaints against Karki. The hearing committee has received 29 complaints as the deadline ended on Friday.

The complainants, according to the committee members, have claimed that as Karki has failed to maintain the dignity of the position as the acting chief justice, he shouldn’t be appointed the chief of the judiciary. They also argue that appointing Karki as the chief justice would only result in a waste of state resources. The retirement benefits for the chief justice are higher than those provided to other justices.

Karki was appointed the acting chief justice on October 5 last year. The Supreme Court has been headless after Cholendra Shumsher Rana faced an impeachment motion in the second week of February last year. Rana retired as the chief justice on December 13 without Parliament deciding on the motion. Senior most justice Deepak Kumar Karki then led the judiciary as acting chief justice for seven months.

Article 292 of the constitution requires the chief justice, justices, and those nominated to constitutional commissions and ambassadorial posts to pass parliamentary hearings before they take the oath of the positions. President Ramchandra Paudel will appoint Karki as the chief justice if he gets through the hearing process.

Only a two-thirds majority of the 15-member committee can reject the nomination.