Next hearing on writs against House dissolution on Sunday

The constitutional bench of the Supreme Court started hearings on the writ petitions filed against the dissolution of the House of Representatives and the announcement of dates for mid-term elections today. The hearings for today are over and as per the apex court the next hearing has been scheduled for Sunday.

The constitutional bench formed to hear the writs today was headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana. The other Justices in the bench include Deepak Kumar Karki, Anand Mohan Bhattarai, Tej Bahadur Karki and Bam Kumar Shrestha.

Of the 30 writs filed at the apex court, initially, only 11 of them had sought a hearing through a constitutional bench and 19 through the general bench. However, a single bench of Chief Justice Rana while hearing the 19 writs on Thursday decided to assign them too to the constitutional bench.

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, on the recommendation of the government, had dissolved the House of Representatives and announced the dates for mid-term elections on May 22. She had cited that the claims made by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who is also chairperson of CPN UML, and Nepali Congress President Deuba to form the government as per Article 76 (5) of the Constitution of Nepal did not hold sufficient ground to confirm that they would win the vote of confidence in the Parliament.