Yes, this is “loktantra”

By PR Pradhan The impeachment motion against Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki and the Supreme Court verdict against the impeachment motion and reinstatement of CJ Karki demonstrate a serious battle between the executive and judiciary, which is quite unfortunate. These two events can be taken as evidence that the present system has collapsed. Everybody knows that just to avoid the court verdict against some decisions, NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal decided to suspend Karki. According to sources, Dahal had even taken permission of Delhi to suspend CJ Karki. Therefore, one can assume, Delhi was also against CJ Karki. Yes, Deuba and Dahal believe that they are above the constitution. In fact, the major political parties have already destroyed important organs including the judiciary by appointing party-men. In the judiciary also, the justices were appointed on the basis of party loyalty. The decision in the appointment of the justices was taken at mid-night at CJ Karki’s residence. Maoist Center’s Barshaman Pun was giving instruction to the members of the Judiciary Council. Nevertheless, things will not go always in favour of those who are destroying important organs of the nation. The tussle between the executive and judiciary was started after the appointment of DIG Jaya Bahadur Chand, a junior DIG among the DIGs to the post of IGP by discarding senior most DIG Navraj Silwal. The Court gave the order to promote Silwal on the basis of seniority. Again, by violating the Court order, the government promoted Prakash Aryal and tried to take action against Silwal on the charge of producing a fake evaluation report. Silwal’s case is still under consideration of the Supreme Court and it is said that CJ Karki was about to give verdict on Silwal’s case. Deuba and Dahal were worried from the Court verdict, which could alter the government decision of assignment of Aryal as IGP. This is the main reason behind the impeachment motion against CJ Karki. As Karki is going to be retired next month, there was no specific reason to register an impeachment motion against her. Also, as UML, the second largest party, was against the impeachment motion, the motion was not going to be endorsed by the Parliament. Even though, to avoid an unexpected decision from CJ Karki, the impeachment motion was registered against CJ Karki with the purpose that Karki should not look after the cases with the registration of the impeachment motion, Karki was going to be suspended. This is the second time that the impeachment motion has been misused by the political leaders. When CIAA chair Lokman Singh Karki had tried to catch some “big fishes”, he had to face the impeachment motion. Finally, Karki was sacked through the SC decision that he was not qualified to head the Commission. On impeachment motion against Karki also, the attempt was made to close the corruption cases in which those big leaders were involved. As the Court was also politically motivated, CIAA chair Karki, was finally sacked by the SC. However, this time, CJ Karki was rescued by Justice Cholendra Shumser Rana. Justice Rana’s Bench on 5 May gave an interim order to the Parliament to stop the impeachment motion until finalization of the court case against CJ Karki and asked CJ Karki to return to work immediately. Interestingly, CJ Karki and Justice Rana had hostile relations for the last six months and they were even not in speaking terms. By knowing such a hostile relation between CJ Karki and Rana, acting CJ Gopal Prasad Parajuli had assigned Rana to look after CJ Karki’s case considering that he would never give any decisions in favour of CJ Karki. So far, Rana didn’t try to take revenge against Karki, instead, he performed the duty of a justice. Earlier, before registering the impeachment motion, both Deuba and Dahal had tried to influence CJ Karki. When CJ Karki didn’t respond to both the leaders, they reached to a conclusion to register the impeachment motion just to serve their personal interests. The two impeachment motions registered against the heads of the constitutional bodies have made naked our political leaders. Furthermore, these two incidents have proved how the political leaders are involved in rampant loot of the nation even by violating laws. It is shameful to state here that the two leaders Dahal and Deuba had produced signatures collected from the MPs for another purpose to use it against CJ Karki. The MPs belonging to NC and MC were saying that the signatures collected to file a no-confidence motion against the then prime minister KP Oli was misused on the impeachment motion against CJ Karki. This is a serious violation of ethics of Deuba and Dahal. When the supreme leaders of the political parties are involved in such fake works, how can we expect that they are honestly serving the nation! Of course, they are involved in daylight robbery of the nation by taking into confidence their bosses in Delhi. In other words, they are working for foreigners instead of the nation. If Deuba and Dahal had even a little amount of moral responsibility, they would have tendered their resignation immediately after the Supreme Court’s interim order.