Mayor of Vyas Municipality in Tanahun Baikuntha Nath Neupane has moved the Supreme Court against the Pokhara High Court’s order to recount the votes cast in the election for mayor of the municipality.
According to Govinda Prasad Ghimire, information officer at the Supreme Court, Mayor Neupane filed an appeal at the court on Thursday.
The application has been registered and scheduled for a hearing on Sunday.
Deepak Raj Joshi, a candidate for the mayor of Vyas Municipality, had filed a petition at the Pokhara High Court alleging fraud during the counting of votes cast for the post of mayor during the local elections held on May 13, 2022. He had demanded a recounting of votes cast for the mayor.
Responding to the petition on May 14, a joint bench of Pokhara High Court judges Rajan Prasad Bhattarai and Nirmala Paudel Bhattarai ordered that the votes for mayor be recounted from 10 AM on June 16.
In the full text of the verdict released on May 24, the court has also ordered the report to be presented before the bench after the recounting of votes is completed.
Deepak Raj Joshi, son of former Nepali Congress leader Govinda Raj Joshi, had contested the election for mayor during the local elections in May 2022. He was supported by CPN-UML. Nepali Congress candidate Neupane won the election by a margin of 252 votes.
Mayor Neupane moved the Supreme Court after the full text of the Pokhara High Court’s order was released. He has demanded that the recounting of votes be stopped. He has claimed that recounting the votes would be against the law as Joshi had not filed any application for a recount during the vote counting process and had congratulated him upon his election.
