Kathmandu, July 3: The Supreme Court has approved the government’s appointments in different constitutional bodies. The then government led by K.P. Sharma Oli had appointed 52 members to the Constitutional posts without fulfilling the constitutional requirement four years ago.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Prakashman Singh Raut, gave a verdict at midnight approving the government appointments.

The then Oli-led government had amended the law through an ordinance and recommended the appointment of 52 officials to the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, Election Commission, Human Rights Commission and Constitutional Commission in two phases. When the parliament was dissolved, a writ was filed in the Supreme Court against the constitutional appointments made on the basis of the majority of the three members of the Constitutional Council. The then government had recommended the appointment of 32 individuals in 2077 Magh 21 and 20 individuals in 2078 Asar 10. The then President Bidya Devi Bhandari had appointed 52 individuals in the constitutional bodies under the recommendation of the then government led by Oli.

The verdict was delivered by a bench of Chief Justice Prakash Singh Raut, Justice Sapna Pradhan Mall, Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma, Justice Kumar Chudal and Justice Nahakul Subedi. Chief Justice Raut and Subedi had stood against the court verdict; however, when the majority, or say, three judges justified the government’s decision, the government’s decision was approved.

With this decision of the Supreme Court, 52 office bearers in the constitutional posts will now be able to work for the full term.

Judges Pradhan, Sharma and Chudal, however, held that the writ would be dismissed - that is, the appointment would stand. The SC verdict was decided on the basis of a majority after three judges voted to dismiss the writ.

There was a long discussion among the judges before the verdict. The judges were sitting in the chamber since early morning. After more than 12 hours of deliberation, they came up with a written decision. The case was heard in the Constitutional Bench.

Earlier, after Prime Minister Oli dissolved the House of Representatives using the prerogatives of the head of the government, the parliamentary hearing of the recommendation of the constitutional functionary could not be held. The then President Bidya Devi Bhandari appointed Prem Kumar Rai as the chief commissioner of the Commission for Investigation on Abuse of Authority (CIAA), Top Bahadur Magar as the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and 32 others out of the 38 recommended by the Constitutional Council.

They were appointed without a parliamentary hearing due to the dissolution of the House of Representatives. There is a constitutional provision that the parliamentary hearing will be held after the recommendation of the Constitutional Council, and the President will appoint after the approval of the hearing committee.

People’s News Monitoring Service.