The Madhesh Province government's dispute over the appointment of the Chief Minister has now reached the Supreme Court. Four writ petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court regarding the dispute. Three cases regarding the appointment of the Chief Minister and one case filed by five MPs removed by the Speaker are pending in the Supreme Court.

There are two public interest writ petitions on the appointment of the Chief Minister, while one was filed by 74 MPs from Madhesh Province. The Supreme Court has also issued three interim orders. An interim order was issued again on Tuesday in the Chief Minister appointment dispute.

Earlier, the Supreme Court issued an interim order in a writ petition, restraining Saroj Kumar Yadav, who was appointed as the Chief Minister, from doing any far-reaching work, and issued a similar order again on Tuesday. The bench of Justices Nahakul Subedi and Sunil Kumar Pokharel made this order.

This order was made after hearing the writ petition filed by the majority of MPs. The joint bench of the Supreme Court has also ordered a full hearing on Mangsir 11 along with another writ petition. The Supreme Court's order mentions the situation in which the resignation was made while the process of taking a vote of confidence as per Article 168, Clause 4 of the Constitution has not been completed and the majority of the members of the assembly have applied to form the government as per Clause 2.

‘The issue of whether or not the Chief Minister can be appointed as per Clause 3 without taking any decision on the said application is of a nature to be resolved at the time of the final decision,’ the order states, ‘However, since it appears that a serious question of the values ​​and transparency of parliamentary democracy envisaged by the Constitution has been raised prima facie in the process of appointing the Chief Minister, the Council of Ministers, which was said to have been formed on Kartik 23, should not take any decision that will have a policy and long-term impact and should not take any action in the process of obtaining a vote of confidence as per Clause 4 of Article 168 of the Constitution of Nepal until the final decision on the submitted application is taken,’ the order states.

Similarly, it has also been said that no action should be taken or done that is contrary to the values ​​and norms of the parliamentary process adopted by the Supreme Court.

Debate in the Supreme Court: Appointment of the Chief Minister on Kartik 23 or 24?

Three questions were raised during the hearing of the dispute regarding the appointment of the Chief Minister of Madhes.

In the bench of Justices Subedi and Pokharel, the petitioner side had claimed that the appointment was made on the 23rd and that the oath-taking on the 24th Kartik was a forgery, claiming that it was a fake act. As the largest party, Yadav, the parliamentary party leader of the CPN-UML, took the oath of the Chief Minister at a hotel in Bardibas on the 24th, which was controversial.

After going beyond the provincial assembly and making him the Chief Minister, 74 MPs, except for the UML, filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court. The bench had allotted one and a half hours each in the two-sided debate on Tuesday. Senior advocates Shambhu Thapa, Harihar Dahal, Sher Bahadur KC, advocates Dipendra Jha, Panjkaj Karna, Sunil Ranjan Singh, and others argued on behalf of the writ petitioner.

Three questions were raised during the debate:

1) In the event of the resignation of the Chief Minister as per Clause 2 of Article 168 of the Constitution, can the person with the majority as per Clause 3 be appointed as the Chief Minister?

2) Should the process of appointing the Chief Minister and taking the oath be in the Provincial Assembly or can it be done outside?

3) When was the appointment of the Chief Minister on 23 or 24 Kartik?

During the debate, most of the petitioners' legal practitioners argued that the appointment letter on 23 was illegal. The Province Chief had left for Kathmandu at 4 am on 24 but claimed that the appointment had not been made the previous day as he had taken the oath in the middle.

After the petitioners' debate, senior advocates Ramesh Badal and Chandrakant Gyawali argued in reply on behalf of Chief Minister Yadav. During the debate, they demanded that a final hearing be held at a specific time. They argued that there was no need to issue an interim order.

After the arguments of both sides, the joint bench of the Supreme Court has also said that the decision of the then provincial chief Sumitra Subedi Bhandari to appoint UML MP Yadav as the Chief Minister in the hotel itself was not in accordance with parliamentary decency. 74 MPs other than the CPN-UML had approached the Supreme Court demanding that the decision to appoint Yadav as the Chief Minister be nullified.

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court had also issued an interim order in the same dispute asking the Chief Minister not to take any far-reaching decisions. However, the Supreme Court has issued an interim order for the second time after the Chief Minister dismissed the Speaker's decision to dismiss five members of the Provincial Assembly. The leaders who filed the writ petition were Nepali Congress Parliamentary Party leader Krishna Prasad Yadav, JSP Nepal Parliamentary Party leader Saroj Kumar Yadav, Maoist Center Parliamentary Party deputy leader Yubaraj Bhattarai, and LOSPA Parliamentary Party leader Jayalun Rai.

There are 107 MPs in Madhesh Province. 54 MPs is the majority number to form a government. There are 25 MPs from UML including the Speaker, 22 from Congress, 19 from JSP, 13 from Janmat, 9 from Maoist, 9 from LSP, 7 from CPN (S), 1 from Federal Socialist Party, 1 from RPP and 1 each from Nagarik Unmukti Party. Of these, UML MP Dipendra Thakur, JSP MP Saroj Singh Kushwaha, and LSP MP Abhiram Sharma are suspended. The current number of members in the Madhes Provincial Assembly is 104.

Supreme Court orders in favor of MPs dismissed by Speaker

The case of five Provincial Assembly members dismissed by Madhes Province Speaker Ram Chandra Mandal is also pending in the Supreme Court after an interim order was issued. The Supreme Court had issued a short-term interim order on Monday not to implement the decision to take action against them. The bench of Supreme Court Justice Nityanand Pandey issued the order on Monday.

Urmila Devi Singh (Nagarik Unmukti Party), Manish Kumar Suman (JSP), Sanjay Kumar Yadav (JSP), Sinhasan Sah Kalwar (JSP) and Sharada Shankar Prasad Kalwar (JSP) had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against the decision of Speaker Mandal.