By Ranju Kafle
Kathmandu, Jan. 27: Hearing on the writ petitions filed against the Prime Minister and the President for their move to dissolve the House of Representatives (HoR) continued on Tuesday.
Three senior advocates, Shambhu Thapa, Surendra Mahato and Sher Bahadur KC, pleaded for the petitioners in the Supreme Court today.
All of them expressed their concerns about the move of the Prime Minister to dissolve the House and said it was neither constitutional nor compulsive.
Thapa began the pleading by continuing his arguments from his statements on Monday.
He said that the move to dissolve the house had no constitutional base. "Neither provisions in the constitution nor the House or the government had obstructed the Prime Minister’s performance," he said.
He threw a question to the Constitutional Bench, “Where was the government obstructed, as claimed by the Prime Minister? Only party disputes were there.”
Thapa also objected to the statement that the 'move was compulsive'.
Advocate Thapa claimed that an elected Prime Minister could not dissolve the House to maintain party disciplines. "No executive head can kill the House to fulfill his vested interest," he said.
Thapa said that neither was there uneasiness in the House nor elsewhere except in the ruling party.
Advocate Thapa said that the Prime Minister never tried to gain vote of confidence in the House before he announced its dissolution.
The sudden attempt made by the Prime Minister was a sort of dictatorship, he added.
Justice Sapana Malla Pradhan interrupted him and asked what the dissolution was for.
"It was for a hidden purpose," Thapa responded. He said that no political right is with the Prime Minister to go against public betterment and the dissolution hampered the rights of the sovereign people directly. According to him, the House was an apex body to appoint or dismiss an individual from leadership. Senior advocate Surendra Mahato said that the parliament never dies in a parliamentary system. "It was killed here with an ill intention," he said.
Not only Mahato, another senior advocate Sher Bahadur KC also blamed that the Prime Minister appointed under Article 76(I) of the Constitution is not allowed to dissolve the House. Meanwhile, three writs were filed on the contempt of court, and two of them were against the Prime Minister and one against former Speaker Damannath Dhungana.
Advocate Kanchan Krishna Neupane and Dr.Kumar Sharma had filed the contempt of court cases. They blamed that the Prime Minister and Dhungana were guilty of contempt of court in their statements. The hearing will continue on Wednesday.