Do we like them?

Do we like Sushila Karki?

Our score: 7 out of 10. She delivered the elections she was brought in for and has a long record as a corruption-busting judge, but a tax break and some aide appointments kept her off the top shelf.

Sushila Karki was born in 1952 near Biratnagar, in Nepal's far east. She studied at Mahendra Morang College, did a master's at Banaras Hindu University in India, and finished a law degree at Tribhuvan University in 1978. She started practising in 1979, became a senior advocate in 2004 and joined the Supreme Court bench in 2009.

On the bench she made her name on corruption. In 2012 her bench convicted the then communications minister of corruption, the first time a sitting minister was jailed for it. She became Nepal's first woman chief justice in 2016. In April 2017 the Deuba-led ruling coalition filed an impeachment motion against her, which the report says was seen as an attempt to block her verdict on a police chief appointment. She retired two months later.

Her second act came in September 2025. After the Gen Z uprising toppled K.P. Sharma Oli's government, protesters picked her, and she topped a Discord poll of Gen Z voters. Her government set up a commission on the protest killings, which reported in March 2026 and recommended action against Oli and his then home minister over alleged criminal negligence. She left any action to the incoming government. After that government took office, the two men were arrested, then released on a Supreme Court order.

On the harm test, the record is thin but clean. Nothing turned up from her on LGBTQ+ or trans people, climate or migrants, and no sign she keeps company with people who push harm. The one flashpoint was her remarks about Muslim women at a November 2025 event against gender-based violence, which drew criticism from various quarters. She then said she did not intend to insult any religion or community. A clarification is not a pattern, and nothing else like it turned up.

The real stain is the Dolma Impact Fund. In October 2025 the tax department granted the fund an exemption under the Nepal-Mauritius tax treaty, after earlier governments had held off. The tax department estimated the fund's potential liability at Rs 12 to 15 billion. A writ petition challenged it, and in February 2026 the Supreme Court ordered her administration not to implement the exemption, saying it appeared inconsistent with Nepali law. Separately, a contempt petition filed in November 2025 alleged her government went ahead with recalling 11 ambassadors despite a court order. That case was still before the court when we last saw it.

Then there's the company her office kept. In March 2026 her cabinet named her chief personal secretary, Adarsha Shrestha, to chair the National Trust for Nature Conservation. Critics, including a Gen Z activist and newly elected lawmaker Mahabir Pun, who called it “100 percent wrong”, questioned his qualifications. The report says he has faced allegations of using the secretariat to hire relatives. The report carried no response from her, and the allegations against him are untested.