The Nepal Bar Association (NBA) has decided to boycott all the Supreme Court (SC) benches on Friday citing use of force on agitating lawyers inside the SC premises on Thursday.
Lawyers protesting against Chief Justice (CJ) Cholendra Shumsher Rana demanding his resignation clashed with the police after the latter tried to stop them from entering the SC premises for demonstration on Thursday. NBA General Secretary Lila Mani Paudel suffered nose injury after being hit by a police baton.
All the SC justices have been demanding CJ Rana's resignation following controversies including picking bench in different cases including those about HoR dissolution, accusations about CJ Rana getting a share of spoils in appointments at constitutional bodies, involvement of CJ Rana in the case about the Constitutional Council, delay in the hearing of case filed making CJ Rana a defendant, and allegations about him seeking share in the Cabinet.
The justices have been boycotting hearing for all the cases except habeas corpus petitions. CJ Rana, however, has been assigning other cases to his single bench and hearing them.
The NBA, however, will boycott hearing for even habeas corpus petitions. "Force has been used on our peaceful agitation. We will boycott all the benches at SC tomorrow. We have talked about boycotting even those benches that are assigned habeas corpus petitions," NBA General Secretary Paudel told Setopati.
He added that the ongoing NBA meeting will take additional decisions.
The NBA has been agitating for 11 days demanding CJ Rana's resignation.
