Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla issued a pointed administrative order on Monday directing the Supreme Court’s own administration to register all writ petitions challenging the government’s controversial recommendation for the country’s next Chief Justice, accusing the court’s registrars of deliberately blocking the legal process at the behest of the very judge whose appointment is under challenge.
Malla ordered that all pending writ petitions, as well as appeals against their earlier rejection, be registered by 1 PM and listed for hearing on Tuesday. A delegation of 30 lawyers had arrived at the Supreme Court earlier in the morning to press the matter with her directly.
The crisis traces back to May 7, when the Constitutional Council recommended Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma as Nepal’s 33rd Chief Justice. The council is chaired by Prime Minister Balendra Shah, and its decision broke with a long-standing convention in Nepal’s judiciary: that the senior-most Supreme Court justice is elevated to the top post. Sharma ranks fourth in seniority. The three justices passed over were Malla herself, Justice Kumar Regmi, and Justice Hari Prasad Phuyal.
When lawyers moved to challenge the recommendation through writ petitions at the Supreme Court, the court administration refused to register them. Sources indicate the refusal came on the direction of Justice Sharma, who remains a sitting judge while his confirmation is pending before the Parliamentary Hearing Committee. It is a situation with few precedents: a judge-in-waiting reportedly instructing the court machinery to close the door on legal challenges to his own appointment.
Malla’s order confronted this directly. She wrote that the Chief Registrar and the case-hearing Registrar had “obstructed the judicial process,” calling their conduct a display of “indifference and negligence toward the purity, impartiality, and independence of the judiciary.” The registrars, her order noted, had acknowledged in a meeting of justices that the instruction to withhold registration had come from the recommended judge himself.
The controversy around the appointment runs deeper than procedure. At the Constitutional Council meeting on May 7, both National Assembly Chair Narayan Prasad Dahal and Nepali Congress parliamentary leader Bhishmaraj Angdembe registered formal written dissent, saying Shah had pushed the recommendation through without adequate deliberation. Former Prime Ministers Sushila Karki and Baburam Bhattarai, and Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa, have all condemned the pick publicly. The Nepal Bar Association warned the decision could have “long-term implications for the independence and credibility of the judiciary.”
The government’s defence has centred on merit: that Sharma disposed of more cases than his senior colleagues, and that he has maintained distance from political influence. Sharma holds a doctorate in labour law from Tribhuvan University, and if confirmed, would serve a full six-year term, longer than the most recent Chief Justices.
That confirmation, however, still requires endorsement by the Parliamentary Hearing Committee, where the RSP holds commanding numbers and a smooth passage for Sharma is widely anticipated.
What makes Monday’s development significant is the nature of the confrontation. Malla is not challenging the Constitutional Council’s authority from outside. She is the acting head of the very institution whose administration has been blocking access to the courts, and she has put that obstruction on record in her own formal order. Nepal has witnessed judicial appointments become flashpoints before, but an acting Chief Justice publicly indicting her court’s own registrars for protecting the interests of a recommended judge is without recent parallel.
The petitions are now scheduled to be heard on Tuesday.