Nepal's chief justice Parajuli resigns

Nepal's controversial Chief Justice Gopal Parajuli today resigned from his post, a day after the Judicial Council sacked him for inconsistencies in his date of birth and remaining in office even after crossing the retirement age.

Parajuli met President Bidhya Devi Bhandari and submitted his resignation.

The Judicial Council removed Parajuli from his post yesterday stating the investigation of documents showed that he had attained the retirement age of 65 years seven months ago on August 5, 2017.

The Judicial Council in the removal letter to Chief Justice cited inconsistencies in the birth dates as mentioned in his citizenship and academic certificates.

The Judicial Council said that Parajuli should have retired seven months ago when he turned 65, the age of retirement for official positions in Nepal.

The Supreme Court's senior-most Justice, Deepak Raj Joshi today assumed office as the acting Chief Justice.

The judicial council's decision to remove Parajuli came in the wake of controversy surrounding Parajuli's date of birth and widespread condemnation of his move to charge the Nepal's leading newspaper Kantipur Daily with contempt of court for a series of articles that said he had given up to five different dates of birth on various official documents.

Parajuli was under pressure from his own team of justices to either resign or stay away from the judicial process after nine justices boycotted the benches assigned to them.