Four Supreme Court (SC) justices, who had been boycotting hearing of all cases apart from habeas corpus petitions demanding resignation of Chief Justice (CJ) Cholendra Shumsher Rana, have returned to duty on Tuesday.
Manoj Kumar Sharma, Bam Kumar Shrestha, Kumar Regmi and Tej Bahadur KC have returned to regular duty. An SC justice on Monday told Setopati that five justices including the four and Kumar Chudal will return to duty from Tuesday.
The joint bench of Chudal and Prakash Kumar Dhungana, who is still with others who don't want to hear any other cases apart from habeas corpus petitions, did not hear any case apart from habeas corpus petition.
The other 13 SC justices including Dhungana, however, are still 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.
CJ Rana shrewdly paired together the justices who were to return for duty—KC and Regmi for a joint bench and Shrestha and Sharma for another joint bench—while constituting 10 benches for Tuesday. The fifth justice Chudal was paired in another joint bench.
The bench of Shrestha and Sharma was assigned 21 cases and it issued four orders while that of KC and Regmi, that was assigned 41 cases, issued 28 orders. Both these benches heard all kinds of cases today.
The joint bench of Chudal and Dhunagana, however, did not hear any other case apart from the one habeas corpus petition.
