KATHMANDU, March 10: The writ petition filed at the Supreme Court (SC) demanding the immediate arrest of and investigation into Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who is also the chairman of the CPN (Maoist Center), holding him responsible for the deaths and destruction during the decade-long Maoist armed insurgency, could not be heard on Thursday. The first hearing of the case was scheduled for Thursday, but the hearing did not take place because the bench could not manage time to hear the case. The next hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The case was supposed to be heard by a single bench of Justice Bishwambhar Prasad Shrestha. The hearing was postponed after Justice Shrestha could not manage time for the case against Dahal as he was also included in another joint bench.
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Some victims of the Maoist insurgency filed two writ petitions at the Supreme Court demanding a mandamus to bring Dahal to legal proceedings as he had said he would take the responsibility for the people killed during the armed conflict. The writ petitions were registered on Tuesday after the order of the apex court.
A joint bench of Justices Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada and Hari Prasad Phuyal ordered the filing of writ petitions against Prime Minister Dahal on Friday last week. Fourteen people including Gyanendraraj Aran and eight people including Kalyan Budhathoki have registered two separate writ petitions against Dahal. They filed the petitions based on Dahal's speech at an open forum in Kathmandu on January 15, 2020. At that time, Dahal said that he would take the responsibility for 5,000 deaths that took place during the conflict.
