Corruption in courts?

A full bench of the Supreme Court (SC) has preserved the sanctity of Nepal’s judiciary by overruling a over three-year-old controversial verdict handed down by its division bench, which had ruled in favor of a group of locals who wanted to register 43 ropanis of government land located at a prime location in capital Kathmandu’s New Baneshwar area in their names. We whole-heartedly applaud the apex court for living up to its name and welcome the decision with open arms.



The full bench comprising of Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha and Justices Tahir Ali Ansari and Krishna Prasad Upadhyaya ruled that the division bench’s verdict issued by justices Rajendra Kumar Bhandari and Sharada Shrestha on Jan 25, 2007 was wrong. The division bench had upheld a verdict by Patan Appellate Court Judges Damodar Prasad Prajapati and Bodhari Raj Pandey in 2002 despite all evidences pointing against the group of six locals claiming ownership over the property. The land presently is valued at about Rs 2 billion.



While the wrongs committed by the SC division bench and the Patan Appellate Court has finally been rectified, the SC now needs to probe into the matter to find out what had led to a verdict in favor of the locals. Was it simply an error of judgment? What led to such an error? Were the justices and judges not able to figure out that the documents that the locals had presented were fake as has been ascertained now? Did the locals try to influence the verdict by bribing the justices and judges besides producing fake documents? This is a possibility that cannot be ruled out considering the amount of money that the locals would have gained if they had succeeded in ultimately transferring the land in their names. These are pertinent questions that need to be probed into and brought out into the open.



The final recourse before Nepalis who have been wronged is to knock at the doors of our courts. Thus, it is important that they are free, fair, unbiased and have competent people working there. Anything that puts a question mark on the very essence on which a judicial system is built should be immediately corrected. If people lose faith in the judicial mechanism of the country, they may begin to take the law in their own hands. And that would be a sure recipe for anarchy. Meanwhile, exemplary punishment must be immediately meted out to the six people who produced fake documents and influenced the decision of the courts.

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