KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court is set to hear a contempt of court petition today concerning a provision in the government’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2025/26, which allegedly disregards a prior court order related to the export of natural resources.
Senior Advocate Dinesh Tripathi filed the petition on Sunday, naming the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Forests and Environment, and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies as defendants.
The court has scheduled the hearing for today.
The petition claims that Clause 87 of the newly announced budget violates a previous Supreme Court ruling by allowing private sector involvement in the commercial production and marketing of natural and mineral resources.
Advocate Tripathi argues that this constitutes contempt of court and has demanded the strictest legal action against those responsible.
Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel, in his budget speech for the upcoming fiscal year, proposed opening up the extraction and commercialization of mineral-based resources to private investment—an initiative critics argue directly contravenes the Supreme Court’s earlier decision.
In a previous budget for fiscal year 2021/22, also presented by Paudel, the government had included a provision to export mining materials such as stones, gravel, and sand. However, the Supreme Court had issued a mandamus order barring the implementation of Clause 199 of that budget, effectively prohibiting the export of such materials.
The current petition asserts that the new budget reintroduces similar policies under a different guise, thereby undermining judicial authority.
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