Kathmandu, December 7

Communist Party of Nepal Chair Rishi Ram Kattel today filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court, demanding that the Election Commission’s decision recognising the name of the newly created  party ‘Nepal Communist Party (NCP)’ be quashed.

This party was created on May 17  after the merger of CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre.

The petitioner has named the Election Commission, NCP (NCP) and its co-chairs KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal as defendants.

Kattel argued in his petition that his party had stated in its document that it would identify itself as CPN in brief and the Election Commission’s decision to recognise NCP (NCP) would mimic his party’s name.

He argued in his petition that  as per section 6 (1) of Political Party Act, the Election Commission cannot register a new party in case the name of the new party sounded similar to the name of a party which had already been registered at the Election Commission.

Kattel stated that he had complained to the Election Commission demanding that the NCP (NCP) not be recognised, but the EC quashed his claim on October 26.

Kattel said the name of the NCP (NCP) mimicked his party’s brief name. He said that  the EC gave validity to NCP (N C P), saying that there were seven parties registered at the EC that had Communist Party of Nepal as their main names, but  the name of those parties in the brackets were different and hence the Election Commission’s argument was flawed.

He said as per Section 10 of the Political Party Act, a new party could be created after the merger of two or more parties, but in this case,   NCP (NCP) could not be given validity because this party was not created out of merger between the two parties.

Kattel argued that NCP (NCP) was created only after the registration of CPN-UML and CPN-MC were cancelled. He said the NCP (N C P)’s new registration number was 145.  He argued that recognition of NCP (NCP) was also in violation of Section 9 of Political Party Act, which protected a party’s name, flag and symbol from being used by other parties.