KATHMANDU: The Constitutional Bench has resumed the hearing on the writ petition related to the dissolution of the House of Representatives from Wednesday morning.
Unlike the time-consuming and monotonous hearings before the Bench last time, the hearings this time are expected to be more concise, and straightforward.
To make the lawyers abstain from prolonging the debate leading it astray during the argument, the Supreme Court (SC) has allocated a fixed time of 15 hours to each of the parties of the debate.
Of the 30 writ petitions filed against the dissolution of Parliament, 26 are against Prime Minister KP Oli and four are in his favor. These writs are being debated continuously from today.
Although more than 300 advocates have registered their names for debate only at least 15 to 20 of them will be allowed to part in the debate.
However, as the SC has given both the plaintiff and the defendant fifteen hours each, and due to the time limit, not all the legal practitioners will be able to take part in the debate this time.
Senior advocates Khamba Khati, Govind Sharma Bandi, Mahadev Yadav, Badri Bahadur Karki and Shambhu Thapa will argue on behalf of the writ petitioner in today’s debate.
According to sources, Khati has been given 20 minutes, Bandi 40 minutes, Mahadev Yadav 30 minutes, Badri Bahadur Karki 1 hour and Shambhu Thapa 1 hour and 30 minutes for today’s debate.
These five senior advocates will take 4 hours-time in the Constitutional Court today.
The Supreme Court has given the writ petitioners a total of 12 hours to debate. Provided everything goes as per the plan, the arguments from the petitioners will be completed in three days at the rate of four hours a day.
It has been decided that Krishna Prasad Bhandari, Harihar Dahal, Mukti Pradhan and Raman Shrestha will debate in the debate tomorrow. Out of them Shrestha and Dahal will have an hour-long debate each.
Then it will be the turn of advocate Tikaram Bhattarai and others.
After the debate of the advocates on behalf of the writ petitioners, the government side will get the turn. From the government side, Sushil Pant will take the lead this time as well. Attorney General Ramesh Badal, Joint Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General will debate.
Eleven people are scheduled to debate from the government side this time. After them, there will be the turn of some private legal practitioners.
After the turn of debate from the legal practitioners on both sides is finished, the four senior advocates in the Amicus Curiae will debate.
The amicus curiae comprise two lawyers each from the Supreme Court Bar and Nepal Bar Association. The amicus curiae will get a total of two hours time.
The writ petitioner will then have another three hours to respond.
The debate is expected to conclude in 32 active working hours starting from today.
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