Following hearings on a writ petition filed at the apex court by former minister Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta, a single bench of Justice Girish Chandra Lal issued an interim order to the Interim Election Council and the EC, among others. [break]
The SC ordered the defendants to carry out the election preparations bearing in mind Clause 3(a) of Article 63 and Article 154 A of the Interim Constitution.
However, Justice Lal declined to issue an interim order to stop all election preparations, as demanded in the writ petition. He said it would not be appropriate to halt all the poll preparations.
The apex court has also ordered the defendants to furnish arguments within 15 days why the apex court should not issue an interim order as demanded by the writ petitioner.
The SC´s order comes at a time when various Madhes-based political parties are stating that they will not participate in CA elections held without re-drawing the election constituencies.
Clause 3 (a) of Article 63 in the Interim Constitution states that members to be elected on the basis of first-past-the-post will be elected on the basis of one member from each of the 240 election constituencies delimited by the Election Constituency Delimitation Commission in accordance with the population fixed by the national census preceding the CA election, and for this purpose an administrative district will be treated as an election district, with the number of constituencies therein determined on the basis of the population of that district.
According to Article 154 A, the government may constitute a Constituency Delimitation Commission to determine election constituencies for the purpose of election of members of the Constituent Assembly, and the commission shall consist of a retired justice of the SC as chairperson, a geographer, a sociologist and an administrator or management expert as members and a special class officer in the service of the government as member-secretary.
Rajlal Mandal of Saptari had moved the apex court on April 2 on behalf of Gupta, demanding formation of a Constituency Delimitation Commission as per Article 154A, before announcing the dates for CA polls.
He claimed that the announcement of election dates without delineating the election constituencies would violate the Interim Constitution.
The writ petitioner also claimed that such a move would be against constitutional supremacy, the democratic system and the universal principle of political rights.
The president´s office, office of the Interim Election Council, Nepali Congress (NC) President Sushil Koirala, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, CPN-UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal, Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic Chairman Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar and the Election Commission have been named as defendants in the writ petition.
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