KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 22

The Supreme Court has attached written rejection notice on the petition filed by Senior Advocate Surendra Bhandari against the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact.

Bhandari had urged the court to stop the government from tabling the compact or debating it in the House of Representatives without making amendment to it.

The SC Registrar said that it was clear from the petitioner's petition that MCC deal was sub judice at the HoR and it would be improper for the court to make the deal a subject of judicial adjudication.

This means that Bhandari will now have to challenge the SC Registrar's refusal order, which will be heard by a Supreme Court justice. If the bench accepts Bhandari's argument for filing the case at the Supreme Court, then his case will be registered or else it shall be rejected. He has argued that some of the provisions of the MCC deal were against constitutional supremacy and some other provisions undermined Nepal's provisions.

Communist parties, including the CPN-Maoist Centre, which is a ruling coalition partner, have also said that the MCC deal undermined Nepal's sovereignty as the deal stipulated that it would be above domestic laws. The MCC has, however, clarified that none of the deal's provision undermined Nepal's sovereignty or interests.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, while tabling the bill in the HoR on Sunday, had said that the constitution of Nepal was above the deal.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 23, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.