Kathmandu, July 1:

The Constituent Assembly Court today upheld the victory of CPN-UML candidate Bisham Lal Adhikari from Sindhuli Constituency No 1 in the April 10 CA election.

Adhikari had won the election by securing 12,058 votes, just 257 more than his nearest rival, CPN-Maoist candidate Shanti Man Karki, who challenged his election claiming that there were irregularities.

A three-member bench of Justices Anup Raj Sharma, Top Bahadur Magar and Ram Kumar Prasad Shah issued the judgment.

"The court cannot cancel polling in three centres and rule for a fresh election in the three centres only, as per the demand by the defeated candidate. The court can, however, rule cancellation of the election in the entire constituency and order a fresh election," the bench stated.

"The final results of the election will not be different even if 38 ballot papers claimed to have gone missing are allotted to the defeated candidate,"the bench further said.