LALITPUR: The Patan High Court has ordered the Election Commission (EC) not to enforce its decision to impose a fine of Rs 15,000 on candidates who did not disclose election expenditure details on time.

The Patan High Court issued a short-term interim order on Monday and urged EC not to implement its decision related to fining the election candidates until further notice.

The court called both sides for further discussion on August 7.

“The court has called both sides for a discussion on August 7, Until then, there has been a short-term interim order urging the EC not to implement the decision to impose a fine,” Thagindra Kattel, the Registrar at the High Court said.

The commission decided to impose a fine of 15,000 on each candidate for not publishing the expenditure details of the House of Representatives and Provincial Assembly elections held on November 20.

The commission issued a press release on July 25 and released the list of candidates saying that they did not provide information about the expenditure details. The commission had decided to fine 1,037 candidates for the House of Representatives and 1,398 candidates for the Provincial Assembly.

Among them, four of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) lawmakers Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, Shishir Khanal, Ganesh Parajuli and Sobita Gautam had filed a writ against EC’s decision at the Patan High Court on Sunday.