The Supreme Court (SC) will conduct final hearing on the writ petition filed by CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli against the decision to form CPN (Unified Socialist) including the 14 lawmakers expelled by UML on April 3.
The SC has been hearing three different petitions filed against splitting of UML. A joint bench of Justices Ishwore Khatiwada and Kumar Chudal, that has been hearing the three petitions together, has sent them to the full bench on Sunday, according to SC Spokesperson Bimal Paudel.
The SC ordered for final hearing by the full bench on April 3 for expedited resolution of the constitutional and legal questions raised by the petitioner.
There will be final hearing in the petitions now and the verdict will arrive after the final hearing is completed.
Oli had moved the SC against the Election Commission for splitting UML to form Unified Socialist, Speaker Agni Sapkota for not implementing the expulsion of 14 UML lawmakers and continuing them as Unified Socialist lawmakers and provincial speaker of Lumbini for not suspending two lawmakers recommended for suspension by UML.
UML had informed Speaker Sapkota about expulsion of 14 lawmakers including Madhav Kumar Nepal. But he did not publish the notice to implement the decision immediately and wrote to the Election Commission that UML has 121 lawmakers in the House of Representatives (HoR) and 33 in the National Assembly.
The act related to political parties requires the speaker to publish notice about expulsion of lawmakers within 15 days. Sapkota sat on UML's notice and decided on the 13th day that there is no need to expel the 14 lawmakers as they have already registered a new party.
