Friday 15 Jan 2021

Lalitpur: The writ petition filed in the Supreme Court against the dissolution of the House of Representatives is being heard today. Despite the formation of the Constitutional Court, Wednesday’s debate was limited to whether to refer the issue of dissolution of the House of Representatives to the plenary session. The writ petitioner’s lawyer and the opposition public prosecutor have differed on the issue. The dispute will be settled by the Constitutional Court of the Supreme Court only on Friday.

The legal practitioners of the writ petitioner had reiterated their demand to resolve the dispute from the plenary session. Pro-government law practitioners claimed that the constitutional session should not be taken to a larger scale once it has been formed. During the debate, there was a long question and answer session between the bench and the lawyers of the parties. On behalf of the opposition government, Attorney General Agni Kharel said that the Supreme Court should not be sent from the Constitutional Court to the Plenary Session as per the rules. Kharel said that the issues could be taken up in a comprehensive manner if ordered by the full session. Kharel had drawn the attention of the bench saying that it was clear in the Rules of Procedure of the Supreme Court what kind of issue would be taken up in the plenary session after the new constitution came into force.

Debating on behalf of the President’s Office, senior advocate Sushil Pant also said that the Constitutional Court should be disbanded. On behalf of the petitioner, senior advocate Raman Kumar Shrestha claimed that the writ petition related to the dissolution of the House of Representatives was not only related to the constitutional interpretation. According to Shrestha, the dissolution of the House of Representatives was a political issue in the written reply of the Prime Minister.

Another senior advocate, Hari Upreti, said that a serious constitutional interpretation was needed, adding that the reasons and grounds had been sent to the Constitutional Court. The main issue could not be entered as the debate on the formation of the bench was embroiled in controversy on Wednesday. Now that the dispute has been debated, the procedure and procedure for hearing from the Constitutional Court will be finalized only on Friday. Senior advocates Krishna Prasad Bhandari, Harihar Dahal, Raman Kumar Shrestha, Hari Upreti, Dinesh Tripathi, Dr. Chandrakant Gyawali, and Shambhu Thapa had started the debate on Wednesday morning on behalf of the petitioner.

He demanded that a full plenary session be held with at least 11 judges as it would be difficult for only five judges to administer justice.

The court had reconstituted the constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana on Wednesday morning. A constitutional bench comprising Chief Justice Rana, Vishwambhar Prasad Shrestha, Anil Kumar Sinha, Sapna Pradhan Malla, and Tej Bahadur KC has been constituted to hear the writ petition. After Rana decided not to join the bench of Justice Harikrishna Karki, the constitutional bench was reconstituted by replacing Karki with Malla.