KATHMANDU, MARCH 16

The Supreme Court today quashed writ petitions filed against the citizenship ordinance issued by the KP Sharma Oli-led government on May 22. The court is yet to release full text of its order.

Senior Advocate Borna Bahadur Karki and some other lawyers had filed petitions challenging the ordinance.

Earlier, the SC had stayed the ordinance.

Even after quashing of the writ petitions filed to challenge the citizenship ordinance, the targeted people would not benefit because an ordinance ceases to exist if it is not endorsed by the Parliament within 60 days of the first meeting of the new session of the Parliament.

The Sher Bahadur Deuba government did not table the ordinance in the Parliament.

Senior Advocate Surendra Kumar Mahto said that the apex court's decision to quash writ petitions challenging the citizenship issue would not benefit people but if the Deuba government issued the same ordinance now, it could be enforced. 'Today's court order means that if the government issues the same ordinance again, stay order cannot be issued against such an ordinance,' he said.

The citizenship ordinance was aimed at providing citizenship to children of citizens by birth and children of Nepali mothers whose fathers cannot be traced.

A five-member constitutional bench led by Acting Chief Justice Deepak Kumar Karki decided to quash writ petitions filed by Senior Advocate Karki and other petitioners.

Other members of the constitutional bench are justices Meera Khadka, Hari Krishna Karki, Ishwar Khatiwada, and Ananda Mohan Bhattarai.

On 10 June 2021, the constitutional bench led by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana had stayed the citizenship ordinance.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 17, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.