A single bench of Justice Girish Chandra Lal also summoned both the writ petitioners and the defendants for Wednesday to discuss whether the interim order should be continued or not. [break]
The cabinet meeting held on Friday had promoted Lieutenant Colonels Sahadev Khadka, Hira Lal Joshi, Pankaj Karki, Prayag JBR, Yograj Sharma, Ram Rana, Lawa Kumar Rayamajhi and Arjun Shrestha to colonel.
Similarly, Lieutenant Colonels Surendra Singh Rawal, Prem Dhoj Adhikari, Dipak Kumar Baniya, Shankar Bahadur Pandit, Homnath Dawadi, Ram Krishna Thapa, Bhim Shah and Hem Jung Thapa were promoted to colonel. NA on Sunday had conferred insignias on the newly promoted colonels.
Lieutenant Colonels Sampat Kumar Aryal, Ramesh Thapa Magar, Chandra Bahadur Pun Magar, Rajendra Jung Khatri, Ramji Thapa, Surendra Gharti, Prakash Pokhrel and Nabin Basnyat on March 17 filed a writ petition at the apex court against NA´s recommendations on the promotion of the 16 lieutenant colonels, arguing that these fast-track promotions were intended to create inequality among equals.
The writ petitioners have stated that the newly introduced promotion procedure is against existing laws, army protocol and operational law. All the eight writ petitioners were contenders for the promotions.
Earlier, nine lieutenant colonels had expressed reservations over the newly introduced promotion procedure.
They had also filed a complaint against the fast-track promotion system, claiming that formation of the committee to recommend names for promotions was unfair and unacceptable. The fast-track promotions committee had recommended 16 names for promotion.
NA has introduced a fast-track promotion system for the first time in its history.
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