Nepal

SC issues order to register earlier rejected writ petition on local election

KathmanduPati February 16, 2022

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KATHMANDU – The Supreme Court (SC) has issued an order to register a writ on civic poll. A single bench of SC Justice Iswar Prasad Khatiwada issued order to register the writ petition related to local election, shared SC Spokesperson Baburam Dahal.

According to him, the writ petition was earlier rejected on February 9. “It is rationale to resolve the issue relating to the tenure of local level office-bearers by interpreting constitutional and legal provisions through judicial review”, reads the apex court order.

“It is not appropriate to settle such issue relating to the constitution and law by rejecting the application at administrative level without bringing this to the judicial process”. It may be noted that Mayor of Bhangaha municipality of Mahottari, Sanjeev Kumar Sah had attempted to register a writ petition demanding not to conduct local election in a single phase. He argued that conduction of local election announced for May would deprive them to complete the constitutionally-stipulated five-year term.

The government had decided to hold the local election on May 13. The civic poll was held in three phases earlier in 2017. In the past election, the civic poll was held late on 16 June 2017 in the then Province-2, recently named as Madhes province. Dahal informed that the writ petition of Mayor Sah would now be registered with this.