Kathmandu, Aug 24: The Supreme Court has issued an order against Chief Minister Uddhav Thapa of Koshi Province, stating that procedure the Chief Minister Thapa secured trust vote was against constitution, parliamentary practice, constitutional morality and court precedents.
A single bench of Justice Ishwor Prasad Khatiwada issued the order on Thursday. “Counting the vote of even the chair of the Province Assembly, and declaring Thapa’s win in floor test was against Article 168 (2 and 4), and Article 186 of constitution of Nepal, constitutional morality and precedents,” stated the interim order, asking the government under Thapa’s leadership to not make any policy level decision bearing long term impact till the final hearing.
For the full hearing on the case, the SC has given prior rights of hearing to it on September 1.
Arguing that Thapa had secured trust vote in an illegal manner on August 22, parliamentary party leader of CPN UML in Koshi Province, Hikmat Kumar Karki, had filed a writ petition at Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Karki had also demanded mandamus from the Supreme Court thereby paving way for his appointment as Chief Minister as per Article 168 (3) of the constitution after the government formed as per Article 168 (2) failed to secure confidence vote.
While voting in the Provincial Assembly, the chairing MP Israil Mansuri also cast his vote. After his voting, Chief Minister Thapa was able to garner 47 votes, a majority in the Assembly. Koshi Province Assembly has 93 MPs.
The Thapa-led coalition has 47 votes where Nepali Congress has 29, CPN Maoist Center has 13, CPN (Unified Socialist) has 4 and Janata Samajbadi has 1 seat.
Likewise, CPN UML has 40 and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) has 6 seats in the Assembly which is not enough to form government.
