Thaindian News

Kathmandu, May 20 (IANS) As Nepal’s beleaguered Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal battles to save his government from falling in eight days’ time and seeks an extra year from parliament to complete the new constitution, the crisis has now received a legal twist.

The republic’s Supreme Court has stepped into the fray with a hearing Sunday to decide if the current parliament is illegal.

“A huge fraud was perpetrated on the nation,” says Bharat Jangam, an activist who went to court last year, challenging the decision of the then government, parliament and president to amend the interim constitution and extend the deadline for promulgating the new constitution to May 28, 2011 from May 28, 2010.

“In May 2008, after a new parliament was elected, it agreed in its first meeting that a new constitution would be ready by May 28, 2010. The only circumstances that would have allowed the deadline to be extended were the declaration of emergency following an invasion or a natural catastrophe.

“And even then, lawmakers were to get only six months more to complete the task.”

But May 16, 2010, when it was clear that the then Madhav Kumar Nepal government would not be able to meet the May 28 deadline and would try to extend it, Bharat Jangam went to court, asking for the constitution to be delivered in time.

“Though the case was sub judice, the council of ministers, parliament and president approved of an extension in a midnight drama on May 28,” he says.

“Now the extended period is about to end on May 28, 2011 and the new premier, Jhala Nath Khanal, is seeking for yet another year when the case is still sub judice.”

Bharat Jangam’s lawyers Thursday urged the court to dissolve the 601-seat parliament, saying it had become illegal and unconstitutional.

A three-judge bench agreed that the hearing on the case had been delayed and that the amendment was controversial.

Since this is a critical issue, the judges have asked the chief justice, Khilaraj Regmi, to constitute a full bench with at least five judges to decide the issue.

The full bench will take up the case Sunday.

The court’s decision also clashes with an earlier judgment issued by another bench that came as a shot in the arm for Nepal’s ruling parties.

The earlier judgment had said that parliament can’t be dissolved till it completes its task of writing the new constitution.

It had heartened the prime minister and his chief ally, the Maoists, who are facing demands by the irate public to quit or return the money drawn by MPs for three years when they failed to do their job.

Public protests have begun erupting in front of parliament and Khanal also faces calls for his ouster by his own party men as well as the opposition parties.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)