Supreme Court hearing writs against cabinet expansion today

KATHMANDU:  Supreme Court (SC) is hearing the writ petitions filed against the cabinet expansion on Tuesday.

Challenging Friday’s cabinet reshuffle, six writ petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking its annulment.

The writs have been filed against the cabinet expansion arguing that a caretaker Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli cannot expand the cabinet.

Advocates including Dinesh Tripathi, Kanchan Krishna Neupane have filed separate writ petitions seeking annulment of the new appointments, reshuffle and division of work in the cabinet as made by President Bidya Devi Bhandari on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.

In the writ, advocates have argued that the latest cabinet reshuffle and the appointment of the new ministers and their work division are fraudulent and contradict the spirit of many articles of the Constitution including, Article 2, 74, 77 (C) and deserves annulment.

If the apex court issues an interim order today, the newly appointed ministers will lose their ministerial posts.

Prime Minister Oli on Friday had expanded the cabinet by inducting 10 ministers from Thakur-Mahato faction of Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and two ministers from his own party CPN-UML.