The Supreme Court has dismissed writ petitions filed against the legitimacy of the CPN (Unified Socialist), which was formed after splitting from the CPN-UML.
After the formation of the Unified Socialist under the leadership of Madhav Kumar Nepal, UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli and others had filed petitions at the Supreme Court on September 1, 2021.
Hearing the petitions on Monday, a bench of Justices Manoj Kumar Sharma and Sunil Kumar Pokharel dismissed them.
At least 10 parties, including the Unified Socialist, have merged to form the Nepali Communist Party.
Joint Registrar Arjun Prasad Koirala, spokesperson for the Supreme Court, said that the court dismissed the petition, stating that the relevance of the case had ended in recent times.
According to him, a directive order has been issued regarding the speaker. However, the details of the order have not yet been disclosed.
Oli had filed three separate petitions, naming the Election Commission as the defendant in all of them.
In one petition, Lumbini Provincial Assembly Speaker Purna Bahadur Gharti, the Provincial Assembly Secretariat, and provincial assembly members Bimala Khatri and Ajay Shahi were also named as defendants.
During a vote of confidence held on May 10, 2021, fourteen UML lawmakers, including Madhav Nepal, did not vote in favor of then-prime minister Oli. Following this, the UML took action against them. Later, Nepal and other lawmakers and central members split from the UML to form the CPN (Unified Socialist).
The UML then filed a petition against the Election Commission's verification of signatures from 14 lawmakers and 9 central members to register the Unified Socialist. It argued that the commission’s had acted against the law by verifying the signatures of the lawmakers and central members since the party had already taken action against them.
The UML claimed that the Unified Socialist party registered in such a manner should be annulled.
Regarding Lumbini Provincial Assembly members Khatri and Shahi, the UML filed a separate petition, alleging that Speaker Gharti did not implement the party's action against them despite them winning elections on the UML symbol.
