KATHMANDU, March 4: The Nepali Congress-affiliated Democratic Lawyers' Association (DLA) has picketed the Nepal Bar Association (NBA) election committee office after a complaint was filed against the list of names for the central working committee elections to be held on April 5.
The High Court Bar Association filed a complaint on Tuesday, demanding the removal of the names of 711 voters from the Kathmandu District Court Bar Association’s voter list, which led the DLA to stage a protest by encircling the NBA Election Committee office. The preliminary voter list for the election had been published, with a total of 11,772 names. The deadline for objections to the list was set for Monday.
After the Supreme Court filed a complaint against the Kathmandu District Bar for not renewing the Bar Council, the Kathmandu District Bar also filed a complaint demanding a policy-based investigation into all of them. DLA President Sushil Raj Poudel has stated that the election committee is taking a unilateral approach by only investigating the Kathmandu Bar, despite the need to update the Bar Council for all parties.
Poudel also accused the election committee of planning to remove the voter list only for the Kathmandu District Bar, as the voter list had already been approved by the central committee of the NBA and submitted to the election committee. He said the agitating party is demanding that the voter list be maintained as per Article 25 of the NBA Statute.
The DLA has demanded that the unilateral decision of the electoral body be annulled.