KATHMANDU: With the murder of Supreme Court (SC) Justice Rana Bahadur Bam, a section of judicial circle has been pressing the government to form a high level judicial probe commission to investigate the assassination of the justice of the highest judiciary of the country.

The demand to form a high-level judicial commission has become relevant as the police investigation was unable to uncover any significant clues about the shooting that occurred in broad daylight.  Although heinous crimes that occurred in the past were probed by various high-level judicial probe commissions and some of them were able to locate the criminals and their motives, others failed to solve the mystery. The assassi-nation of popular leader of CPN UML’s then General Secretary Madan Bhandari and Chief of

Department Jivraj Ashrit in 1993 is still a mystery. A high-level judicial commission formed to look into the matter had stated that it was an

accident but the murder of Amber Lama, the driver of the car, hints towards assassination.

Many other high-profile murder cases were probed by high-level commissions and the police as well, but their authenticity is doubtful as the state has been unable to punish those who had a hand in such offences. Following the transition in 2000, many mysterious cases

occurred in the country but not all of them could be brought to justice. The murder of Jamim Shah, Faijan Ahmed, Shiva Paudel, and shooting in central jail occurred in the period of last one and a half year proving that serial crimes have occurred, but the perpetrators could not be brought to justice even after probing by high-level commissions.

In terms of loss to the state treasury and the excessive use of force in 1990 and 2005/06 movements, though judicial commissions probed the incidents and reports were made, they were never implemented. The lack of political will to bring criminals into the net of justice has been fuelling criminal activities in the country.

“There is a mystery to be solved in every offence and so they must be given due importance when being probed,” Advocate Krishna Prasad Sapkota, president of Supreme Court Bar Association, told THT Perspectives. “If the state fails to uncover the truth and bring criminals to justice, it cannot assure the common people of justice and security,” Sapkota added.