PAC recommends House to impeach two SC justices

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Sunday decided to appeal to the House of Representatives to impeach two justices of the Supreme Court (SC) who issued a controversial verdict scrapping the decision to blacklist the Maha Laxmi Sugar Mills.

Chairman of the PAC, Chitra Bahadur KC, in the meeting today made the decision to recommend the House begin impeachment proceedings against the sitting SC Justices Arjun Prasad Singh and Badri Kumar Basnet for their alleged "wrongdoing" while issuing the verdict that scrapped the decision to blacklist the Mills owned by businessman Binod Kumar Chaudhary.

The verdict in January this year had scrapped the decision taken by the Credit Information Centre of the Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) and Bankers’ Club to blacklist the Mills for “defaulting bank loans”.

In addition, the January verdict had effectively made it difficult to collect the amount over 1.22 billion from the troubled company.

Following the verdict, five major banks and financial institutions of the country had pleaded to the apex court to have the controversial SC verdict reviewed.

A hearing on Aug. 11 by the division bench of then acting SC Justices Kedar Prasad Giri, Badri Kumar Basnet and Tap Bahadur Magar had decided that the case would not be reviewed, which legitimized the previous SC verdict.

After the verdict, the banks on July 6 submitted a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Subhas Nemwang demanding impeachment against the justices be initiated for their "wilful offence".