KATHMANDU, MAY 17
The Supreme Court today stayed the expulsion of four Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal lawmakers of the Lumbini Provincial Assembly - Bijay Bahadur Yadav, Santosh Kumar Pandey, Suman Rayamajhi, and Kalpana Pandey from the Provincial Assembly.
The four lawmakers were expelled by the party's executive committee recently following which they were removed from the Lumbini PA. The decision to remove them was taken by the Upendra Yadav-Baburam Bhattarai faction of the party, but it was opposed by the Mahantha Thakur-Rajendra Mahato faction.
A single bench of Justice Nahakul Subedi also issued a show cause notice to the defendants.
The court has asked both sides to appear with their arguments on May 30 why an interim order should or should not be issued in the case.
The court observed that the JSP-N did not give a chance to the expelled lawmakers to clarify, prima facie violating the principle of natural justice. The court observed that as per the Political Party Act, JSP-N chief whip in Lumbini PA should have informed the party's central committee about violation of the whip and the central committee should have taken action after letting lawmakers put forth their views, but these processes were not followed while expelling the lawmakers from the PA. The SC stayed Lumibini speaker's decision removing lawmakers from the PA until its verdict in the case.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 18, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
