Judicial Council recommends four judges for Supreme Court, two members dissent
The Kathmandu Post reports no one was named for Justice Binod Sharma's seat, though the law asks for nominees a month before he retires in November.
Nepal's Judicial Council, the five member body that picks judges for the Supreme Court and the high courts, recommended four High Court judges for the Supreme Court on Tuesday, October 6. Two of its five members filed written dissents, saying the picks pass over more senior judges. The dissenters are Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla, the Supreme Court's senior-most justice and a council member, and senior advocate Mahesh Kumar Nepal, also a council member, Setopati, OnlineKhabar and Ekantipur reported. The two did not object to the same names. Nepal opposed two picks, Janak Pandey and Gokarna Dangi, and backed the other two, the Kathmandu Post reported. Malla dissented on all four, OnlineKhabar reported. The Kathmandu Post reported she cited four grounds: failure to meet constitutional and legal standards, no transparent criteria, passing over senior judges and a failure of inclusivity.
If your family has a case at the Supreme Court, the empty seats on its bench reach you. In September, Nepal Bar Association general secretary Kedar Koirala said litigants were suffering because the court was short of judges, after the council filled High Court posts before touching the top court's empty seats, the Kathmandu Post reported.
The four recommended are Ratna Bahadur Bagchand, chief judge of the Pokhara High Court, and High Court judges Chandra Bahadur Saru, Janak Pandey and Gokarna Dangi, the Kathmandu Post reported. They still need parliamentary hearing approval under Article 292 of Nepal's constitution before they can take their seats. The Judicial Council is chaired by Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma and also includes Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sobita Gautam and senior advocates Mahesh Kumar Nepal and Damodar Khadka, the Kathmandu Post reported.
What the coverage missed
The council recommended only four names though five Supreme Court seats stand vacant, the Kathmandu Post reported. The Judicial Council Act asks for nominations at least one month before a seat opens. Justice Binod Sharma retires mandatorily in November, and no one has been named for his seat, the Post reported.
This is not the council's first seniority fight. The Kathmandu Post reported in November 2023 that the council skipped senior-most judge Nripa Dhwoj Niroula to recommend Tek Prasad Dhungana instead. The Post wrote that "Dhungana made it to the list despite being ranked 15th in the high court hierarchy," with judges including Bagchand ranked ahead of him at the time. Bagchand, passed over then, is named first among this week's four picks.
A sitting Cabinet minister, Gautam, has a direct vote on who joins the Supreme Court as a structural member of the council. No report has said how she or fellow member Damodar Khadka voted, or whether either backed Malla's and Nepal's dissent.
What we still do not know
- How did Minister Sobita Gautam and senior advocate Damodar Khadka vote, and did either join the dissent. The Judicial Council, Gautam or Khadka could answer.
- Why was no nominee named for Justice Binod Sharma's seat despite the one month legal notice rule. The Judicial Council secretariat or Chief Justice Sharma's office could answer.
- Will the Nepal Bar Association formally protest these picks. Nepal Bar Association leadership could answer.
The four names now move to parliament's hearing committee. No hearing date has been announced.
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Sources
- Setopati · Reported the recommendation of four judges and the dissent by two Judicial Council members over seniority
- OnlineKhabar · Nepali language report detailing that Justice Malla dissented against all four picks and senior advocate Mahesh Kumar Nepal dissented against two, framing the dispute as a seniority violation
- Ekantipur · Reported the dissenting opinions filed by two council members
- Ekantipur · Reported the recommendation of four judges to the Supreme Court
- Nepal Press · Nepali language report naming the four recommended judges including Chandra Bahadur Saru
- The Kathmandu Post · Named all four nominees and listed the Judicial Council's five members, including Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla
- The Kathmandu Post · Reported the unfilled fifth vacancy, the one month legal notice rule, Justice Binod Sharma's retirement, the Article 292 parliamentary hearing requirement, and the specific grounds of each dissenting member's objection
- The Kathmandu Post · Carried Nepal Bar Association general secretary Kedar Koirala's comment on litigants suffering from the judge shortage
- The Kathmandu Post · Documented the council's November 2023 seniority bypass and that Ratna Bahadur Bagchand was passed over then
Editorial review record
Why it ran today
- ranking judge 1: ranked #3 with 66/100. Setopati, OnlineKhabar and Ekantipur confirm a fresh recommendation with on-record dissents from Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla and council member Mahesh Nepal. We can add the seniority list and show who was skipped. The writer must not call this a sequel to the May chief justice pick, which was made by a different body, the Constitutional Council, and the grounds of the dissent must be credited to Kathmandu Post alone. Weakest dimension: personal stakes.
- ranking judge 2: ranked #3 with 66/100. Confirmed. Setopati, OnlineKhabar and Ekantipur report a fresh recommendation with on-record dissents from Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla and council member Mahesh Nepal, and we can add the seniority list. Do not frame it as a sequel to the May chief justice pick, which the Constitutional Council made, a different body, and credit the grounds of dissent to Kathmandu Post alone. Weakest dimension: personal stakes.
What the desk dug up
- The pattern. The Judicial Council has bypassed high-court seniority to pick Supreme Court justices before, in November 2023, when it skipped seniormost judge Nripa Dhwoj Niroula and instead recommended Tek Prasad Dhungana, who was ranked 15th on the high court hierarchy, while judges including Ratna Bahadur Bagchand ranked ahead of Dhungana were passed over; Bagchand is now one of the four judges recommended today under the identical seniority objection. [The Kathmandu Post] [The Kathmandu Post]
- The numbers. The Judicial Council recommended only four names even though five posts are vacant at the Supreme Court, and under the Judicial Council Act nominations must be made at least one month before a vacancy opens; Justice Binod Sharma is due to retire mandatorily in November 2026, yet no candidate has been named for his seat. [The Kathmandu Post]
- The record. The 'seniority' rule the council is accused of violating today is itself the product of a contested 2023 regulatory amendment that reordered judges' rank so a Supreme Court chief registrar appointed to a high court is placed just below the chief judge, a change the Nepal Bar Association says unfairly demotes lawyer-appointed judges below career judges and which triggered sit-ins through September 2024. [The Kathmandu Post] [The Kathmandu Post]
- Left out. The five-member Judicial Council that split 3-2 on these nominations includes a sitting Cabinet minister, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sobita Gautam, as a structural member alongside Chief Justice Sharma and senior advocates Mahesh Kumar Nepal and Damodar Khadka; no report identifies how Gautam or Khadka voted or whether either joined Malla and Nepal's written dissent. [The Kathmandu Post] [The Kathmandu Post]
Validation
1 red team round, 2 revisions. Decision: approved.
- accuracy88
- relevance80
- defensibility88
- virality61
Judge 1: The core record is sound: four nominees, two written dissents, the Article 292 hearing and the 2023 precedent. But the piece misstates the two dissents in the body, take and caption, drops Malla from the council, and invents a reader consequence. Its most repeated hook, a seat empty past its deadline, rests on a seat that is not vacant until Sharma retires in November, and the card's 'TOP JUSTICE' reads as the Chief Justice. All of this is fixable in one pass with sources already on the list.
Judge 2: I checked the six edits ordered after judge 2 against version 3 and every one was made. These were the caption's 'this week's' wording, key_facts fact 4, a caption hook that no longer repeats the card, the 'said in September' tense in social_hook, 'seniority fight' in the take and the trimmed Bar Association bullet. A full reread found no claim moved to the wrong place, no changed name, date or number, and no new unsourced sentence. The card meets the headline standard, and the take and caption trace to the Kathmandu Post, OnlineKhabar and Setopati. One small logic wrinkle remains: the piece asks whether Gautam or Khadka joined the dissent after saying only two members dissented. It does not block publication, and no revisions are left.
The complete record, including the advocate, skeptic, red team and defence arguments, is kept by the newsroom.
