• 11 writ petitions filed
• All listed for hearing tomorrow

KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 21

Eleven writ petitions were filed today at the Supreme Court challenging the dissolution of the House of Representatives by the government. All the petitions have been listed for hearing on Wednesday, according to Supreme Court Spokesperson Bhadrakali Pokharel.

All the petitioners have argued that the prime minister did not have the power to dissolve the HoR and his recommendation to do so yesterday was unconstitutional.

The constitutional bench of the SC will hear the petition filed by Advocate Santosh Bhandari and others.

Rest of the petitions will be heard by other benches of the SC.

Dinesh Tripathi, who is one of the 10 other petitioners, has argued that invoking articles 76 (1) (7) and 85 of the constitution for the dissolution of the HoR was done in bad faith as the constitution gives the prime minister the option to recommend dissolution of the HoR only when s/he leads a minority government.

He argued that as per the constitution, the HoR could be dissolved only in the exceptional case when no party got majority and neither a coalition nor a minority government could be formed.

His petition states that the PM who leads a majority government has no power to dissolve the HoR under the new constitution.

Unlike the 1990 constitution, this constitution does not give the PM prerogative to dissolve the House and in this sense the new constitution is a huge departure from the British model of parliamentary democracy.

“Our constitution is close to the German model of political system,”

Tripathi added in his petition. He said the new constitution departed from the British model of parliamentary democracy mainly because after 1990, HoR was dissolved repeatedly at the whims of the prime minister.

The framers of the present constitution incorporated provisions to prevent any PM from dissolving the HoR, he added.

Tripathi demanded reinstatement of the HoR and an interim order against the government. He urged the court to order the government to call the regular session of the Parliament and bar Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli from recommending any names for the office bearers of constitutional bodies. He also urged the court to nullify the Constitutional Council’s recent decision to nominate office bearers for constitutional bodies.

Apart from Advocate Santosh Bhandari, Kanchan Krishna Neupane, Sulabh Kharel, Gyanendra Aran, Shalikram Sapkota, Kamal Bahadur Khatri, Maniram Upadhyay, Dinesh Tripathi, Lokendra Bahadur Oli, and Amita Gautam Paudel have also filed petitions challenging the dissolution of the HoR.