By Ranju Kafle
Kathmandu, Jan. 21: Hearing on the writ petitions filed against the dissolution of the House of Representatives (HoR) continued for the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday at the Supreme Court. Today’s pleading centered on both constitutional and political issues relating to the dissolution.
Advocates who pleaded on behalf of the petitioners mentioned the struggle made for the establishment of democracy in the country in the past and said that the move of the Prime Minister to dissolve the House was against the constitution.
"Provision of the constitution is the ultimate truth; the Prime Minister crossed the jurisdiction while dissolving the House," they commented. According to them, calling for early election to get fresh mandate was not in accordance with the constitution.
Hearing will continue for the fifth day on Thursday. Fourteen advocates argued with unlimited hearing time on the first writ petition till the fourth day on the subject. Last pleading pertained to the second writ petition registered in the court today.
Senior advocate Chandrakanta Gyawali began the pleading session on behalf of petitioner today in the constitutional bench of the court. Except for Gyawali, two other senior advocates, Krishna Prasad Bhandari and Kanchan Krishna Neupane and two advocates Anita Joshi Manandhar and Jhala Kumari BK pleaded today.
The Justices asked the advocates to keep time while making arguments in the court, however, the advocates ignored it, prompting the Supreme Court to impose time limit for pleading.
Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana asked Gyawali to limit his arguments within half an hour as he was allotted half-hour time for the pleading at the beginning of the hearing session today. However, Gyawali asked for an hour and spent above an hour on pleading. "We have time allotments for the pleading from today," CJ Rana said.
Before this, Justice Anil Kumar Sinha had asked the advocates to take note of time limits while making long discussions on the matter. "Let's discuss the matter briefly, there are more than 350 incidences issued to plead," he had said.
But the court administration confirmed that it had issued only 188 incidences till Wednesday.