Supreme Court Issues Stay on Suspension of Madhesh Province MPs

Kathmandu – The Supreme Court has issued a short-term interim order not to relieve five members of the Madhesh Provincial Assembly of their posts.

The bench of Justice Nityananda Pandey on Sunday instructed the Madhesh Speaker, Ram Chandra Mandal, not to immediately dismiss the five lawmakers.

The previous Thursday, 64 provincial assembly members from the Nepali Congress and six other parties had gone to register a motion against Speaker Ram Chandra Mandal for conduct unbecoming of his office. Later that same night, the Provincial Assembly Secretariat, in a counter move, issued a notice relieving five members—four from the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) Nepal and one from the Nagarik Unmukti Party—of their posts.

Speaker Mandal dismissed them, citing their continuous absence from 10 consecutive meetings after the motion of conduct against him was brought for registration.

The day after the notice of dismissal was published in the Provincial Gazette, Sanjay Kumar Yadav, Manish Kumar Suman, Singhasan Sah Kalwar, Shankar Prasad Kalwar of the JSP Nepal, and Urmila Devi Singh of the Nagarik Unmukti Party approached the Supreme Court.

A controversy has arisen in Madhesh Province following the appointment of Saroj Kumar Yadav, the parliamentary party leader of CPN-UML, as the Chief Minister under Article 168 (3) of the Constitution of Nepal, as the leader of the largest party.