Four justice positions have remained vacant in the Supreme Court for months. As Chief Justice Bishowambhar Prasad Shrestha retires on October 4, he has stopped hearing the cases since September 4.

Starting Sunday, one more justice—Prakash Dhungana—is out of the bench. Dhungana, who retires on October 21, stopped hearing the cases as a practice to refrain from the benches a month before retirement. The 21-member court now has only 15 justices to hear the cases.

“The Supreme Court effectively has six positions vacant, after the chief justice and justice Dhungana stopped hearing the cases,” Achyut Kuikel, spokesperson for the top court, told the Post. “Fewer justices means fewer cases that will be heard.”

Though the Supreme Court is short of a third of its justice strength, the Judicial Council has yet to fill the vacant positions. Despite holding several meetings, it has yet to reach an agreement on the appointments.

The five-member Judicial Council, led by the chief justice, nominates judges and justices. The council includes the law minister, the senior-most Supreme Court justice, and two advocates—one each picked by the association and the government.

“We are in continuous meetings. We sat today [Sunday]. There will be a meeting tomorrow [Monday]. However, no concrete progress has been made in appointments,” Ajay Chaurasiya, the minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, told the Post.

“The Nepal Bar Association has reservations over the council’s regulation. We are trying to make the recommendations ensuring that it is acceptable to the relevant stakeholders.”

The council revised the regulations in September 2023, adjusting the judges’ ranking. According to the amendment published in the Nepal Gazette on September 20 last year, the chief registrar of the Supreme Court or the council secretary, if appointed a high court judge, would be ranked right after the chief judge of the high court.

The association has demanded that the provision be revoked, describing it as regressive, biased, discriminatory, arbitrary, and unconstitutional and arguing that it contradicts the principles established by Supreme Court’s verdicts. On September 1, the association started a sit-in demanding that judges be appointed only after revising the provision.

Following the protest from the lawyers’ umbrella body, the judiciary's leadership constituted a five-member committee on September 2 to settle the matter through dialogue. Prakash Man Singh Raut, the senior-most justice of the Supreme Court, led the panel.

The panel, however, failed to find a meeting point. The Nepal Bar Association refuses to budge from its demand to revert the changes.

Ram Prasad Bhandari, a member of the council, Gopal Krishna Ghimire, and Anjita Khanal, president and general secretary of the association, respectively, and Yam Bahadur Budha, secretary at the council, were members of the panel.

Despite 10 days of effort, the Raut-led panel couldn’t resolve the dispute. Raut and Bhandari disagreed with the association’s demand to revert the amendment, while Budha remained neutral. As a result, two separate reports were presented to Chief Justice Shrestha.

The lawyers’ body started the protests as the council was making final preparations to appoint judges across three layers of courts. Along with six justices, 16 are needed in various high courts.

In December last year, the council appointed Lal Bahadur Kunwar, the Supreme Court chief registrar, a high court judge and ranked him second after the chief judge of Patan High Court. The association claims that the amended regulation unfairly demotes judges appointed from among lawyers, placing them below career judges in the hierarchy.

"We want the vacant positions to be filled at the earliest possible but without ignoring our genuine concerns," said Ghimire.

Officials at the council said the chief justice is trying his best to fulfil the vacant positions before he retires. The chief justice has his own list, so has the law minister.

"Along with the concerns from the Bar Association, the differences over the names are also a reason for the delay in picking judges," said an official who has followed the development.