The court had scheduled to hold the hearing on the retirement row before the division bench of Justices Tap Bahadur Magar and Mohan Prakash Sitoula.
The Justices deferred the hearing after they received a letter from the Office of the Attorney General (AG) for postponement of the hearing, said brigadier generals´ lawyers Tika Ram Bhattarai and Madhav Kumar Basnet.
Sources said the AG office wrote to the apex court after a request from the Defense Ministry on Sunday morning.
The retirement row reached the Supreme Court in March after the Maoist-led government pensioned off Brigadier Generals Nara Bahadur Kandel, Kumar Budhathoki, Narendra Bahadur Rawal, Pawan Bahadur Pandey, Pradip Bikram Rana, Shiva Kumar Poudel, Ramesh Bista and Raju Pratap Singh in a controversial manner.
A Supreme Court official said the government is yet to decide on a date for the next hearing.
Similarly, the court also postponed the hearing on the corruption case against Governor Bijay Nath Bhattarai after it received a request from Bhattarai´s lawyer.
Earlier on Friday, army chief Rookmangud Katawal had requested the Defense Ministry to review the decision of the Maoist-led government to pension off the eight brigadier generals.
The retirement of the eight brigadiers, which dominated the political scene in March this year, is one of the issues that troubled army-Maoist relations when the former rebels were in the government.
The Maoist-led government in March gave retirement to Brigadier-Generals Nara Bahadur Kandel, Narendra Bahadur Rawal, Kumar Budhathoki, Pawan Bahadur Pandey, Pradip Bikram Rana, Shiva Kumar Poudel, Ramesh Bista and Raju Pratap KC and refused to extend their terms, with no reason assigned. Katawal had recommended to the then government to extend the brigadiers´ terms.
Sources said that the government is likely to revoke the last government´s decision and extend the terms for three more years, next week.
Accordingly, the Office of the Attorney General, upon the request of the ministry, is going to write to the Supreme Court (SC) on Sunday to defer hearings on the joint writ petition of the eight brigadiers, saying that the government is considering a review of their retirement.
The retirement row landed before the Supreme Court after the army officers filed a joint writ petition.The controversy reached its height when the apex court stayed the decision on March 24. The Maoists had taken to the streets across the country against the court order, besides burning effigies of the judges. The row had even cost Defense Secretary Baman Prasad Neupane his job.
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