The apex court on September 19 had conducted first hearings on the writ petitions, six months after the appointment of Regmi as head of the Interim Election Council.[break]
Pleading on behalf of the writ petitioners, senior advocate and chairman of the erstwhile Constituent Assembly (CA) Subas Chandra Nembang termed the president´s order on removing constitutional difficulties ´unconstitutional´.
“Even the parliament cannot make amendment to the constitution by going beyond the basic structure of constitution. So, we cannot even imagine about doing so through an order on amending constitutional difficulties,” he added.
Nembang said it is a serious issue that the chief justice is working somewhere else when he should have been in the judiciary.
One of the writ petitioners, advocate Chandra Kant Gyawali, warned that such a precedent can invite totalitarianism in the country.
Gyawali argued that if Regmi wants to lead an elected body then he should join a political party to do so.
Similarly, senior advocate Ganesh Nepali claimed that the president´s order on removing constitutional difficulties is against the principle of separation of powers and against all doctrines.
A special bench of Acting Chief Justice Damodar Prasad Sharma and Justices Kalyan Shrestha, Girish Chandra Lal, Sushila Karki, Prakash Wasti, Baidya Nath Upadhyaya, Tarka Raj Bhatta, Gyanendra Bahadur Karki and Bharata Bahadur Karki conducted hearings on the writ petitions. Justice Ram Kumar Prasad Sah was absent in the hearings due to health problems.
Regmi was appointed chairman of the Interim Election Council on March 14, following President Ram Baran Yadav´s orders removing constitutional hurdles.
The seven writ petitions were filed separately by Advocates Gyawali, Om Prakash Aryal, Kanchan Krishna Neupane and Gopal Shiwakoti on March 14, Subhas Acharya on March 17, Chairman of Lok Kalyankari Janata Party Kishori Mahato on March 21, Amar KC of Nepal Rastriya Loktantrik Dal on April 3 and Advocate Bharat Mani Jangam on May 28.
The president´s office, chairman of the Interim Election Council, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Nepali Congress (NC) President Sushil Koirala, Chairman of the CPN-UML Jhala Nath Khanal and Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic Chairman Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, among others have been named as defendants in the writ petitions.
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