Constitutional Bench remains unchanged despite questions

Published On: June 1, 2021 11:25 AM NPT By: Republica | @RepublicaNepal

KATHMANDU, June 1: Despite questions raised by the petitioners over the composition of the five-member Constitutional Bench formed to test the constitutionality of May 22 House dissolution, Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JBR has not made any changes to the bench for Tuesday’s hearing.

The Bench comprising justices Dipak Kumar Karki, Aanand Mohan Bhattarai, Tej Bahadur KC and Bam Kumar Shrestha, besides the chief justice, has been hearing the writ petitions filed at the apex court challenging President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s move to dissolve the lower house of parliament, since Friday last week.

The lawyers, pleading on behalf of the petitioners, demanded that justices duo KC and Shreshta not be included in the Bench as their verdicts have raised many eyebrows. A bench of Shrestha and Kumar Regmi, on March 7, invalidated the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which was formed after a merger deal between the CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center). Similarly, KC’s bench quashed a petition seeking a review to the court’s order to revive the UML and Maoist Center. The petitioners, during the hearing on Friday and Sunday, claimed that the House was led to dissolution due to those verdicts.