SC stays EC decision to re-verify RPP Rana faction’s signatures
Kathmandu, August 21
The Supreme Court today stayed the Election Commission’s decision on re-verifying the signatures submitted by Pashupati Shamsher JB Rana to form a new party.
Responding to a writ field by Rana, a single bench of Justice Tej Bahadur KC issued an interim order against the EC. Rana had split the Kamal Thapa-led Rastriya Prajatantra Party on August 6 and had filed an application at the EC the same day to form a new party — Rastriya Prajatantra Party (Democratic).
The bench ordered the EC to maintain status quo on its decision that sought re-verification of the signatures of leaders who had signed the documents submitted by Rana to the EC. The bench also asked the EC to decide on the process for registering the Rana-led party and granting his party a new election symbol.
The bench observed that prima facie, it appeared that 40 per cent members of the RPP’s Central Committee and Parliamentary Party who had signed the document submitted by Rana on August 6 had verified their signatures in front of a joint secretary of the EC.
The bench observed that the EC decided to re-verify the signatures of persons who had signed the document submitted by Rana only after the RPP general secretary lodged a complaint at the EC on August 11 saying that eight persons were not members of the RPP’s Central Committee and the remaining 56 members could not constitute 40 per cent of the CC.
The apex court stated in its order that since the Kamal Thapa-led party’s general secretary had also accepted that 56 people were members of the CC, it could not be said that the signatures were not verified.
“When an application was filed seeking registration of a party with the names of the office bearers, the EC should have followed only one process and should have proceeded accordingly,” the apex court stated, “ The process that the EC started cannot be void just because another party lodges a complaint.”
The bench observed that the case file showed that some leaders had sent messages from abroad that they wanted their names to be incorporated in the application submitted by Rana and they had given their consent for the same.
After the Thapa-led party lodged a complaint at the EC, the polls panel gave the group until yesterday to come and re-verify their signatures. Since Rana had moved the apex court against EC’s decision, none of the leaders who had signed the document submitted by Rana, went to the EC to verify their signatures following which the EC today published a public notice saying that leaders who had signed the document submitted by Rana did not come to the EC to verify their signatures.
