Kathmandu, May 15:

Now, it is the turn of royalist former cabinet ministers to knock on the door of the Supreme Court, against their detention.

Two different habeas corpus petitions were filed at the apex court, seeking the release of ministers of the royal government Ramesh Nath Pandey and Shrish Sumsher Rana today. Advocate Balkrishna Neupane’s assistant Tikaram Adhikary filed the petition seeking their release while accusing the seven-party alliance government of detaining the royalist ministers illegally.

“The government has no authority to detain anyone merely citing sub-section 3(1) of the Clause of the Public Security Act 2049 BS and accusing them of holding secret meetings against the sovereign people or the movement that caused the reinstatement of the House of Representatives.”

“This Act does not bar anyone from holding meetings. Hence, this is not a valid ground to detain anyone,” the petitioner said. He also added the government has violated their fundamental rights under Article 12 and 14 of the Constitution on the right to assembly and fair trial. Admitting the petitions, the SC has scheduled tomorrow for initial hearing on these.