The Supreme Court administration has registered the writ petition filed by Nepali Congress lawmakers demanding the reinstatement of the House of Representatives.
The petition, submitted two days earlier, was reviewed by the court administration and registered on Tuesday.
Eight lawmakers, including Shyam Kumar Ghimire, chief whip of the NC parliamentary party in the dissolved House, and whip Sushila Thing, had filed the petition on Sunday.
According to Supreme Court Deputy Registrar and spokesperson Arjun Prasad Koirala, the preliminary hearing on the petition will take place on December 17.
The NC lawmakers who submitted the petition include Asha BK, Deepak Khadka, Sita Kumari Rana, Nagina Yadav, Shanti BK, and Shrawan Kumar Shrestha.
In the petition, they have demanded that all election-related activities be halted.
“Since Prime Minister Sushila Karki was appointed unconstitutionally, the election for the House of Representatives proposed to be conducted by her and her government will also be unconstitutional. Therefore, an injunction should be issued to stop all election-related activities,” the petition states.
The lawmakers have named the Office of the President (Sheetal Niwas), Prime Minister Sushila Karki, the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, the Election Commission, the speaker, and the Secretariat of the House of Representatives as defendants.
The petition also demands a mandamus order directing the president to call for the formation of a new government under Article 76 of the Constitution.
It states that after former prime minister KP Sharma Oli resigned on September 9, the president should have appointed a new government under Article 76. The petitioners argue that the government led by Sushila Karki is prima facie unconstitutional.
The petition claims that Karki’s government violates two articles of the Constitution.
“Since Prime Minister Sushila Karki was appointed despite not being a member of the House of Representatives and without the support of any political party, in violation of Article 76 and Article 132 (2), her appointment is prima facie unconstitutional,” the petitioners argue, demanding a writ of quo warranto against her appointment.
The petition also demands that the president’s decision of September 12 to appoint Karki as prime minister, as well as her oath-taking and subsequent appointments, be annulled.
Furthermore, the petitioners demand that the decision of September 12 to dissolve the House of Representatives be annulled and that the House be restored to the state it was in on September 9.
Earlier, CPN-UML Chief Whip Mahesh Bartaula and Whip Sunita Baral had also filed a petition at the Supreme Court demanding the reinstatement of the House and action against the government. The Supreme Court, after the preliminary hearing on the petition, issued a show-cause order to the defendants.
More than a dozen petitions regarding the matter had been filed in the Supreme Court before that.
