The Supreme Court (SC) has issued a show cause notice in the case about House dissolution.
The constitutional bench led by Chief Justice (CJ) Cholendra Shumsher Rana on Wednesday asked the defendants to provide reasons for the House dissolution.
President Bidya Devi Bhandari had dissolved the House of Representatives (HoR) in the wee hours of May 22 on recommendation of Prime Minister (PM) KP Sharma Oli.
The bench has asked the President's Office and the Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers to furnish reasons for dissolving the House within 15 days.
Lawyer of petitioner Govinda Bandi told Setopati that the bench has also announced that regular hearings will be conducted from June 23.
The constitutional bench resumed hearing on Wednesday. The hearing couldn't continue Monday after CJ Rana was taken ill. The bench formed on Sunday by CJ Rana on the basis of seniority started hearing on Wednesday despite opposition by lawyers of Prime Minister (PM) KP Sharma Oli on Sunday.
The Supreme Court (SC) started hearing in the case on May 28 but it was stuck on composition of the constitutional bench until now.
The petitioners against House dissolution first protested against inclusion of Justices Tej Bahadur KC and Bam Kumar Shrestha while the lawyers of PM Oli started opposition when CJ Rana formed the bench on basis of seniority to address the demands of petitioners.
Speaking at the resumption of hearing on Wednesday CJ Rana said the bench he formed on Sunday on the basis of seniority will continue hearing. Speakign after CJ Rana Justice Ishwore Khatiwada said the bench will no longer entertain any question about constitution of the bench.
Advocates including Rajaram Ghimire, Krishna Prasad Bhandari, Deepak Mishra and Yagya Mani Neupane on Sunday submitted an application claiming that 11 justices in the current 13-strong roster for constitutional bench cannot hear the case. They argued that those 11 justices cannot hear the case as some of the petitioners were part of the parliamentary hearing committee that conducted hearing for their appointment as Supreme Court (SC) justices.
The lawyers submitting the application are those who have also filed a petition demanding that the House be reinstated and Oli again made PM.
Attorney General Ramesh Badal, meanwhile, demanded that the previous constitutional bench formed by CJ Rana should hear the case.
C Rana earlier on Sunday formed the five-strong constitutional bench led by him and including Justices Deepak Kumar Karki, Meera Khadka, Ishwore Khatiwada and Ananda Mohan Bhattarai to hear the case.
He was forced to form the bench on the basis of seniority after Justices Deepak Kumar Karki and Ananda Mohan Bhattarai quit the bench he had constituted earlier following refusal by Justices Bam Kumar Shrestha and Tej Bahadur KC to recuse writing that the case about CPN unification is related to the House dissolution.
Lawyers pleading on behalf of the petitioners had protested against presence of Justices Bam Kumar Shrestha and Tej Bahadur KC in the constitutional bench hearing the petitions related to the House dissolution.
Shrestha was part of the joint bench also including Kumar Regmi that invalidated the unification of CPN on March 7 reinstating CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) to the state before their unification while KC was part of the bench that refused to review that verdict.
