The Supreme Court (SC) has refused to issue interim order to arrest CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman and Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
The single bench of Justice Ishwore Khatiwada on Friday has ruled that the interim order demanded by the petitioners need not be issued for now. The bench, however, has sought written response from Dahal and other defendants explaining why the order demanded by petitioners should not be issued.
The single bench of Justice Bishwambhar Shrestha could not hear the case in lack of time on Thursday but it was heard by the bench of Khatiwada on Friday.
The petition by 14 including advocate Gyanendra Aran and Kalyan Budhathoki, and another by Chiranjeevi Giri were registered on Tuesday.
Aran and Budhathoki had approached the Supreme Court with separate petitions in November 2022 seeking an order to arrest Dahal and take necessary action against him in connection with conflict-era cases. But the court administration refused to register their petitions stating that conflict-era cases are outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as they would be addressed by the transitional justice mechanism.
Aran and Budhathoki had then appealed against the court administration’s decision.
Hearing their appeal on Friday, a bench of justices Ishwar Khatiwada and Hari Krishna Phuyal had ordered the court administration to register the writ petitions brought by Aran and Budhathoki against Dahal.
Addressing an event organized at Khula Manch in Kathmandu on the occasion of Maghi on January 15, 2020, Dahal had refuted allegations that he had killed 17,000 people during the decade-long Maoist armed conflict but said that he would take responsibility for the deaths of 5,000 of those killed during that period. He had also said that he would take responsibility for all the good and bad things that happened during the armed conflict.
The petition registered on Tuesday seeks an order to arrest Dahal on the basis of the statement he had made then.
