Blow to Oli as Nepal top court reinstates dissolved House

The Nepal Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives and ordered the government to summon the House session within the next 13 days, dealing a setback to Prime Minister K P Oli on his 70th birthday.

Nepal plunged into a political crisis after President Bidhya Devi Bhandari had on December 20 dissolved the 275-member lower House and announced fresh elections on April 30 and May 10 at the recommendation of Oli, amidst a tussle for power within the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) between factions led by the Prime Minister and by Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and Madhav Kumar Nepal.

On Tuesday, a five-member constitutional bench, headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana, in a unanimous judgement said that the provisions of the Constitution cited by Oli and Bhandari were not relevant as Nepal’s Constitution has made a special provision against the dissolution of Parliament mid-term without exhausting all options to forming an alternative government.