Sanctity of Nepali courts?

The problem today is to search an institution that is not ridden with corruption? Leaders, politicians, ministers, prime ministers, Speakers, the bureaucrats, all are said to have engaged themselves at one time or the other in corrupt practices while being in power.

The only institution that was left to its own mercy, the Courts, too of late has come into the sphere of corruption. Generally speaking, Nepali newspapers in the past rarely printed stories that had to do with the corrupt practices of some judges while deciding cases at the courts. This was so because we were told not to write stories against the courts as the courts could later file a defamation suit against the newspaper. It was this fear that Nepali media more often than not opted not to touch matters related to corruption at the courts. It was left not because that we didn’t know of cases of corruption but for fear of being penalized by the courts.

However, things have taken a new turn. It was debated after the restoration of the democratic order that courts too fell under the jurisdiction of close scrutiny of the newspapers and hence Nepali society appreciated as and when we printed cases of corrupt judges.

The fact is that Nepal’s judges at times excel in corrupt practices with their counterparts in the neighborhood. Because of theirs being shielded by the prestige of the courts and for fear of defamation suits, the papers provided them a sort of benefit of doubt. But the inner fact is that all that appears simple and gentle should not be taken as non-corrupts. It is not that.

At times we hear that a criminal is released and a known drug peddler is acquitted for want of clear proofs. And so many such cases wherein the guilty is freed devising some legal schemes and the laymen have to accept the verdict because we are not supposed to challenge those verdicts.

One British citizen is nabbed on charges of smuggling heroine from the Kathmandu airport. Luckily he is produced to an appellate court. The appellate court instructs the government to put the British national behind the bars for all along fifteen years.

However, the nation’s apex court reverts the previous decision arrived at by the appellate court and surprisingly acquits the smuggler. The apex court possess the right to quash the decision arrived at by any Nepali courts that are under it. But then the Supreme Court’s fresh decision has come under scathing criticism. Rumors have it that the two honorable judges who cleared the British national of the smuggling charges did so under the influence of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Rumors have it that even the Palace authorities have taken note of this case. However, how this case will be sorted out and whether the culprits, if any, are penalized or not will have to be watched.

Talks are there that if the judges who favored the British national were to be penalized, it could be done so only when a new parliament is in existence. It is only the parliament which can initiate actions of "impeachment" against the faulty and the corrupt judges.

In the absence of the parliament, it will have to be watched as to how the King responds to such devastating news emanating from the all sacrosanct courts?

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