Four House of Representatives (HoR) members of ruling CPN have moved the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday demanding ruling that the House is still alive.
CPN Chief Whip Dev Gurung, and lawmakers Krishna Bhakta Shrestha, Shashi Shrestha and Ram Kumari Jhakir have reached the SC and submitted the writ petition in the afternoon, according to advocate Govinda Sharma 'Bandi'.
Ninety HoR members of ruling CPN including Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Senior Leader Madhav Kumar Nepal were to file the petition but only four of them filed it due to the practical difficulty of collecting citizenship certificate and other documents of all 90 lawmakers, according to Sharma who drafted the petition.
He added that all 90 lawmakers have signed in support of the petition though.
"The writ petition demands that the SC should say that the House of Representatives is still alive as the dissolution of the House of Representatives said to have been done on recommendation of the Council of Ministers is unconstitutional," Sharma said.
Dahal had said that he will go to the SC with over 200 lawmakers while addressing the parliamentary party meeting on Monday with lawmakers of the Dahal-Nepal faction in attendance.
The 90 CPN lawmakers had prepared to move the SC against the House dissolution Monday itself. But they concluded that going to the Apex Court bringing in lawmakers of even the opposition parties would be more appropriate.
The Constitution does not have clear provision about House dissolution. Article 85(1) of the Constitution states 'Except when dissolved earlier, the term of House of Representatives shall be five years.'
Some constitutional experts argue that the Constitution envisions House dissolution due to the use of term 'dissolved earlier'. But others argue that the provision has been kept for the situation of inability to choose the PM.
Article 76(7) states 'If the Prime Minister appointed according to clause (5) fails to get the vote of confidence or if any member fails to be appointed as Prime Minister, the President shall, on the recommendation of Prime Minister, dissolve the House of Representatives and fix a date to conduct another election within six months.'
