Nepal’s Supreme Court on Wednesday forwarded all writ petitions challenging Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s move to abruptly dissolve the Parliament to a Constitutional bench, amid intensified struggle between the two warring factions of the Nepal Communist Party to wrest control of the ruling party.
Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana’s single bench passed the order after a preliminary hearing on the 12 different writ petitions filed against the dissolution of the House of Representatives, according to court sources.
The Constitutional bench will start the hearing on Friday. The bench is led by Chief Justice Rana and will have four other justices who will be picked by him.
During the preliminary hearings on Wednesday, senior lawyers citing Constitutional provisions argued that Prime Minister Oli has no right to dissolve the House so long as there is a possibility of forming an alternative government.
It was a coup against the Constitution itself, said senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi, one of the petitioners.
As per the Constitution, if the majority government is dissolved, there is a provision to form an alternative government by two or more political parties and a minority government could also be formed before going to the people for fresh mandate, he pointed out.