Among those recommended include Baidya Nath Upadhyay, Gopal Parajuli, Deepak Raj Joshi, Govinda Upadhyay, Om Prakash Mishra, Devendra Gopal Shrestha, Cholendra Shumsher Rana and Jagdish Sharma Poudel. Baidya Nath was one of the five justices who left the apex court more than a week ago after completing the one-year extended term as temporary justices. He is currently the chief judge of the Appellate Court, Hetauda.

Parajuli is serving as the chief judge of Appellate Court, Patan while Joshi is the chief of Appellate Court Surkhet. Govinda Upadhyay heads the Ilam appeals court and Mishra is the chief of that court in Rajbiraj. While Shrestha leads the appellate court in Mahendranagar, Rana and Sharma are acting chiefs of appellate courts in Butwal and Hetauda, respectively. Sharma assumed the acting position after Baidya Nath was re-appointed to apex court last year. Both Rana and Sharma had failed to make it to the list of chief judges last year. JC member and Senior Justice Ram Kumar Shah has registered his reservation over the names of Govinda Upadhyay and Deepak Raj Joshi.

However, none of the five members registered any difference of opinion on the recommendation of Cholendra Shumsher Rana. A division bench of Justices Sushila Karki and Tarka Raj Bhatta in February 2012 had issued a judicial notice in the name of Rana and his two fellow judges Komal Nath Sharma and Bhupadhwoj Adhikari for giving clean chit to former Nepali Congress leader Jay Praksh Prasad Gupta in 2007 from Special Court on corruption charges. The JC later cleared the trio citing technical reasons. The constitutional body argued that the judicial notice was not part of the main verdict.

With the recommendations on Tuesday, the apex court will have appointments in permanent positions after a gap of over three years. The last time permanent appointment took place was in November 2010 when Justice Sushila Karki was appointed to the post paving her way to create history by becoming the first female chief justice of the country. The JC last year recommended appointment of five temporary justices who had been serving in the same status but had their tenure over.

Their appointment followed a presidential decree to remove constitutional difficulties over the provision of parliamentary hearing in the absence of parliament. The JC on Tuesday, however, did not recommend the names of other three justices—Prakash Wosti, Bharat Bahadur Karki, and Gyanendra Bahadur Karki—who had left office along with Baidya Nath arguing they did not have continuity in office. Justice Tarka Raj Bhatta is past the retirement age of 65 years. Citing the lack of continuity, the JC also did not recommend Ek Raj Acharya, chief judge of Jumla appellate court currently on deputation at the apex court. He is set to retire as the chief judge in the next few days.

Tuesday’s recommendations, if approved by parliament, will take the number of apex court permanent justices to 13. The constitution allows the apex court to have 15 permanent justices and temporary ones as required. It was however not immediately clear when the JC will recommend the names for temporary justices. The apex court backlog cases are over 17,000.

Nepal Bar Association, the umbrella organisation of lawyers, has objected to the recommendations citing that no lawyer made it to the list. In a statement, the NBA expressed dismay at the JC’s decision to ignore the constitutional provision of appointing lawyers as justices.