Cabinet-prez tussle lands in court: Govt’s CA meet plan challenged

KATHMANDU, DEC 28 -

The Supreme Court was moved on Friday demanding an immediate intervention to ensure that the President calls the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly.

Advocate Biswas Acharya knocked on the apex court door, saying that the head of state calling the first meeting of the CA and session of the parliament is an international practice.

The SC has been moved at a time when the government and the President’s Office along with some parties including the Nepali Congress have made conflicting interpretations of the constitutional provision related to convening of the first CA meeting. 

Officials and aides to President Ram Baran Yadav have been citing international practices whereby the head of state calls and prorogues the first CA meeting and parliament sessions. But ministers maintain that as per the Interim Constitution it is the executive head who is supposed to call the meeting. The Cabinet on Thursday did not forward a crucial ordinance that would have changed the constitutional right for calling the CA meet to President.  

Citing the constitutional provision that the President on the recommendation of the prime minister shall call sessions of parliament from time to time, petitioner Acharya maintains that the spirit of the aforementioned provision in Article 51 (1) of the Interim Constitution is that the head of state would call and end the meeting of the CA. The Article 69 (1), however, says that the meeting of the CA would be called by the prime minister within 21 days of the publication of final results of the CA election.

The petitioner argues that allowing the executive head to call the CA meet would set a “wrong precedent”. Acharya argues that it is no longer relevant to cite the example of 2008 when Girija Prasad Koirala held both the offices. The first CA was called by then Prime Minister Koirala, who was also serving as the head of state as then king Gyanendra was in a suspended state following the successful people’s movement. 

The petition demands that the court issue an order nullifying any decision to call the CA meeting by the executive head. Defendants in the petition include Interim Election Government Chairman Khil Raj Regmi, PM’s Office and Minister for Information and Communications. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.