At the time of dissolution, the 275-member HoR comprised 88 members from the Nepali Congress, 79 from Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal–Unified Marxist–Leninist (CPN-UML), 32 from the CPN-Maoist Centre and 21 from the Rashtriya Swotantra Party.
The petitioners have argued that the Nepali Congress, as the single largest party with 88 members, had a clear constitutional claim to form the government under Article 76(3) of Nepal’s Constitution. Instead, they contend, the appointment of Karki and the subsequent dissolution of the House amounted to a constitutional bypass.
The writ, filed by Nepali Congress leaders including Shyam Ghimire, the party’s chief whip in the dissolved House, explicitly describes the Karki-led interim government as “unconstitutional” and seeks its annulment.
A constitutional bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Man Singh Raut, Justice Sapana Malla and other judges heard the matter on Wednesday and issued a show-cause notice to the government, marking the judiciary’s formal entry into what has become Nepal’s most consequential political standoff since the protests.
Notably, demands for restoration of the HoR are no longer confined to the Nepali Congress. Oli’s CPN-UML — whose leader was forced out by the protests but has since begun reasserting himself politically — has also called for the House to be reinstated, underscoring how parties that briefly vanished from public engagement during the unrest are now converging around constitutional remedies.
As Nepal’s political crisis migrates from the streets to the Supreme Court, the case has become a litmus test for how post-protest power is redistributed — and whether leaders sidelined by popular anger can re-enter the political arena through legal revival rather than electoral reckoning.
With PTI inputs
