CJ Cholendra Shumsher Rana becomes victim of dirty party politics.
By P.R. Pradhan
The three parties in the government – Nepali Congress, Maoist Center and United Socialist – have registered an impeachment proposal against chief justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana on 13 February.
The impeachment proposal needs to be rectified by a two-thirds majority in Parliament, however, the ruling party is unable to manage a two-thirds majority in the House. The main opposition party UML is against the impeachment and also thinking about filing an impeachment case against the other four SC judges who were incorporated in the constitutional bench which gave the verdict for reinstatement of House of Representatives along with the instruction to appoint Sher Bahadur Deuba to the PM’s post on a given deadline.
Main opposition party leader K.P. Sharma Oli believes such a verdict has ended the provision of the division of power among the executive, legislature and judiciary. The House is the venue to elect a prime minister but the court has appointed the PM, Oli had a complaint.
Since the reinstatement of the House, the UML is continuously obstructing the House meetings demanding action against speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota, who had denied taking action against 14 MPs whom the UML had asked to dismiss. UML is also thinking of filing impeachment against speaker Sapkota.
Feared psychology:
Suddenly, the case against 14 MPs filed by UML was kept on the roster for a final verdict on Sunday. Pushpakamal Dahal and Madhav Nepal felt that the court may give a verdict for dismissing the MP post of 14 MPs in the Unified Socialist Party. With the fear of the possible court verdict, the two leaders rushed to Baluatar to meet Sher Bahadur Deuba and asked him to immediately file an impeachment case against CJ Rana. They also agreed for presenting the MCC pact in the parliament meeting scheduled for 16 February.
The other information was that the alliance partners had received the information about assigning district judges under the recommendation of the UML by CJ Rana. The district judges’ role in the election is vital as they will be the election officers in districts.
Still, a case for dismissing the appointments in the constitutional bodies by the Oli led constitutional council is impending in the Supreme Court. It is said that through a court setting with the new acting chief justice Deepak Karki, the government is planning to alter the constitutional council’s appointments.
Although the impeachment case against CJ Rana may not be endorsed by Parliament due to the lack of necessary majority, the ruling alliance is planning to take action against Rana on the charge of money laundering by abusing authority. Therefore, the ruling alliance believe, there is a rare chance of return of Rana at the Supreme Court.
Impeachment against constitutional heads:
In the decades-long history of the Supreme Court, the situation for filing impeachment against the chief justice didn’t take place. However, along with the beginning of the loktantra era in 2006, Sushila Karki faced an impeachment move against her. The impeachment move was initiated as the then prime minister Deuba was likely to face a case on contempt of court.
Again, CJ Rana has been suspended after an impeachment move.
Similarly, when the then chair of the Commission for Investigation on Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Lokman Singh Karki had faced an impeachment move when he had planned to catch big fish including the political leaders from all the political parties. When Karki’s operation plan was leaked, overnight, the major parties, whose senior leaders were going to be arrested on the charge of corruption, an impeachment case was filed at Parliament with MPs’ fake signatures and also signatures collected for other purposes.
The provision of impeachment has become an instrument to punish and demoralize the authorities in the constitutional bodies, independent organs but assigned based on political belief.
The present impeachment move against Rana may end Rana’s leadership in the court, still, the partisan politics that taking place in the court will flourish further. If the political parties will continue to assign members and chiefs in the constitutional bodies by sharing seats based on allotment of quota for the political parties, the present trend in all constitutional organs will continue.
Login to add a comment