Why the Nepal Chief Justice’s visit to India should be a moment of reflection on South Asia’s eroding judicial independence

ON MAY 20, 2026, in the Singha Durbar complex in Kathmandu, Dr. Manoj Sharma, Nepal’s current Chief Justice, currently on a visit to India through an invitation from Chief Justice of India (‘CJI’) Surya Kant, was seated before a fifteen member Parliamentary Hearing Committee. The Committee, which is constitutionally required to cross question new recommendees to constitutional posts and is now dominated by prime minister Balendra Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party (‘RSP’).

Earlier that month, Nepal’s Constitutional Council, the constitutional body established under Article 284 of the Constitution of Nepal that appoints all the key constitutional posts in the country, had taken an unprecedented decision. Headed by Shah, the former Kathmandu mayor, whose party the RSP had won a sliding majority in the first general election after youth protests toppled the previous government in September last year, the Council recommended the appointment of Dr. Sharma, the fourth ranked judge in order of seniority in the Supreme Court of Nepal, as the Chief Justice. Similar to India, where the constitutional convention of seniority has historically determined elevation to the head of the judiciary (barring three exceptions, most infamously in 1973 and 1977 during Indira Gandhi’s regime), appointments to Nepal’s Chief Justiceship have, without exception, occurred through the seniority rule.

Through the month, sixteen complaints had poured in challenging Dr Sharma’s recommendation. MP Padma Aryal of the opposition CPN-UML party spoke into the microphone, “After being appointed Chief Justice, can you fearlessly put a check on the wrong decisions of the executive?” Sharma evaded without giving an answer.

Dr. Sharma’s recommendation had come at the cost of superseding three senior judges within the Supreme Court – the acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla, previously a key figure in Nepal’s constituent assembly, and Justices Kumar Regmi and Hari Prasad Phuyal. In the history of Nepal’s young constitution, which came into force in 2015 – the realisation of a 65 year old foundational promise by King Tribhuvan for a constitution written directly by the people’s representatives – this was the first such supersession, and the most brazen instance of the undermining of judicial independence in the neighbouring country. It was also one of the most recent, visible instances of executive interference across the South Asian judiciary. 

‘Running out the clock’

Almost immediately following Sharma’s cherrypicked appointment, wide debate sparked across political forums and the Nepalese bar. “He is not widely known for public legal commentary or academic writing, and has not been prominently associated with landmark constitutional debates,” the Kathmandu Post noted. Experts who analysed the Nepal Kanoon Patrika, the Supreme Court’s official monthly law journal, found that of 1,263 precedent-setting rulings published during his Supreme Court tenure, Sharma had only authored 48 verdicts, a 34 percent authorship rate on the benches he sat on, placing him ninth out of eleven judges. In comparison, the bypassed senior judges authored more than double his output. On three-member Full Benches, Sharma authored only 20 percent of decisions; on Grand Full Benches (Purna Ijlaas), that figure dropped to 17 percent.

Key to the supersession was a bundle of amendments introduced by Balen Shah’s government into the Constitutional Council Act, 2066 (2010 in the Gregorian calendar) – the governing statute for the body, which among other things, allowed the Council to select officials using only a majority vote (compared to requiring every member to agree), and lowered the number of members needed to hold a meeting and make a final decision. Sharma’s appointment was the first to come after these key amendments.

That day, on May 20 before the Hearing Committee, Nara Bahadur Bista, another opposition MP from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) asked Sharma about the allegations that he tried to “capture” the Supreme Court.

In late April, three separate petitions were filed in the Supreme Court by several senior advocates challenging the Council’s decision to appoint Sharma. However, the Supreme Court administration, led by the then Junior Registrar Man Bahadur Karki refused to register the darpeet, the petitions. An appeal was filed against the refusal even as on May 13, several lawyers met acting Chief Justice Malla raising concerns over how the petitions were being handled.