KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court has issued an interim order directing the government not to implement its decision to recall 11 Nepali ambassadors serving in various countries.
A joint bench of Justices Sharanga Subedi and Shreekanta Paudel on Sunday ordered the government to halt the implementation of the recall decision.
On October 6, the Council of Ministers had decided to recall ambassadors from 11 countries, excluding India.
Advocates Pratibha Upreti and Sunil Bhattarai had filed a writ petition against the decision, naming the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers as the defendants.
The recalled ambassadors were appointed during the tenure of then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. The decision affected ambassadors stationed in China, Germany, Israel, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. However, Nepal’s ambassador to India, Dr. Shankar Prasad Sharma, was not included in the recall.
Among those recalled, Nepal’s ambassador to Japan, Durga Bahadur Subedi, is a foreign service officer. He was appointed by then Foreign Minister Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba during the Oli administration. All other recalled ambassadors were political appointees.
The government had instructed the recalled ambassadors to return to Nepal by November 6.
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