Memoir Of A Retired Justice

Durga Prasad Uprety, a class fellow during my short stay at the Institute of Law, Tribhuvan University, who retired as a chief judge of the Appellate Court with a legal service of 37 years, has brought out his autobiography. The book entitled SMRITIKAA PAANAAHARU, roughly meaning Pages of Memory, is an extensive treatise on his life and experience that spanned from childhood days to active service in the Ministry of Law and Justice and several strata of courts in the country.

The voluminous book with an impressive cover showing the portrait of the writer taken during the convocation of Tribhuvan University is divided into five parts with as many as 85 chapters and an extensive photo gallery at the end of the book. At the outset, the book has messages of greetings from four legal stalwarts of the name and fame of Hari Prasad Sharma, Top Bahadur Singh, and Om Prakash Mishra, all Supreme Court Justices, with Sharma and Mishra also assuming the mantles of Chief Justice, and icon of lawyers, Krishna Prasad Bhandari, now in his late nineties.

In the preface, Uprety states that he has included only positive aspects of matters he came across with a constructive frame of mind and has spoken from the core of his heart with biases and prejudices against none.

The first ten chapters in part 1 relate to a detailed study of ancestors and prominent members of the Uprety clan that the writer belongs to and also the Sibakoti family, as his mother, Laxmi Maya Uprety, hailed from the family. In dealing with Subba Muralidhar Uprety, who is taken as the first law graduate of the country, it may be appropriate to note that his son, Professor Chandra Dhar Uprety, alias Chanu or Chane, made good use of the friendship of his father with Sri Prakash Gupta.

Gupta was leading the three-member Indian delegation that came to advise Shri Teen Padma Shumshere on his constitutional reforms. Gupta and Muralidhar Uprety were class friends. Chandra Dhar Uprety was involved in delivering a memorandum to the Indian advisory mission apprising the status of political control in Nepal during the Rana regime.

The rest of the chapters from 11 to 15 under part 1 seem to be concentrated on the author's early life and education from school level to the university, as he did his bachelor's degree in law. I fondly remember my short stint in the diploma level for law, as I left the regular class and instead completed the bachelor's level in law through private examination, an area that Uprety has kindly thought it appropriate to make a special mention.

I express deep gratitude to him for his warm words both as regards my brief company in the college and my later career. It is notable that only nine people completed the degree with Uprety, as there were many dropouts. These included Kalyan Shrestha, the topper of the batch and later Chief Justice, and others, many of whom excelled in legal fields, like Kusum Shrestha, Narendra Kumar Shrestha (also Secretary, Ministry of General Administration), Bishnu Bahadur Rahut, Upendra Labh Karna, Prabhu Narayan Chaudhary, Kanta Shrestha, and Dilli Raj Pant. While Kusum and Kanta were sisters, Rahut and Chaudhary delved into politics and became legislators, with Chaudhary even becoming a minister.

The author has also mentioned two other law students, Bharat Raj Uprety and Bed Prasad Sibakoti, both related to him from paternal and maternal sides, respectively. Bharat Raj Uprety had a very unfortunate turn of events after his short stay as Supreme Court justice, and Siwakoti became acting chief commissioner of the commission for the investigation of the abuse of authority. I nurtured strong links with both since my days at Gorkhapatra Sansthan, where I served as subeditor for The Rising Nepal, and they were proofreaders associated with Gorkhapatra daily.

Chapters 16 to 32 under part 2 relate to extensive discourse on Uprety's entry into legal service and his long innings at the Ministry of Law and Justice and various courts in the country prior to his retirement as the chief judge of the appellate court. In chapter 32, the writer has been especially kind to me for his positive appraisal as he had accompanied a legal delegation led by Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha to Tokyo when I was serving as ambassador.

Part 3, with chapters from 33 to 36, is especially different in the sense that this depicts legal people from the Dolakha district, the role of his family from both sides, paternal and maternal, and a personal assessment of the performances of 11 out of 18 chief justices that he worked under during his 37 years of legal service.

Part 4 is quite extensive in the form of assessments on the part of dignitaries, overwhelmingly from the legal circles, both practicing lawyers and judges, knowing him from close quarters. This consists of chapters from 37 to 85. The last part, 5, includes documents relating to Uprety, including his personal papers, certificates, and testimonials, along with a photo gallery.

The book is quite interesting to read and has a reservoir of information, including factual matters, anecdotes, and even personal details of persons involved. 

However, this is not a full-fledged autobiography and can better be described as a book divided into memoirs and information sheets on many legal people that the author came into touch with or people who made history earlier.

Some readers may find the book unnecessarily more descriptive, as half of the space would have been sufficient to accommodate the life and career of a legal officer spread over 37 years and bring out a concise account. Another negative side of the work is the plethora of proof mistakes and discrepancies that could have been avoided. Likewise, the personally adulatory portion as contained in part 4 may seem unnecessary and could have been dropped for the sake of brevity.

To conclude, despite some drawbacks and shortcomings as mentioned above, Durga Prasad Uprety has performed a yeoman's service in writing such a comprehensively enriching self-reflection of his life with lucid interpretations of the roles of many legal luminaries and deserves heartiest congratulations. After all, no human can be free from some bias on such accounts. The book is a readable work both for legal people and outsiders who are interested in Nepal's legal service. I congratulate the author.

(Dr. Bhattarai is a former foreign secretary, ambassador, and author.)