Two court petitions against Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal have been registered in the Supreme Court.
The petitions of lawyer Gyanendra Aran and Kalyan Budhathoki were registered on Tuesday. The court has scheduled the preliminary hearing on the petitions for March 9.
Aran and Budhathoki had approached the Supreme Court with separate petitions in November 2022 seeking a warrant to arrest Dahal and take necessary action against him in connection with the conflict-era cases. But the court administration refused to register their petitions stating that the conflict-era cases are outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as they would be dealt with by the transitional justice mechanism.
Aran and Budhathoki then appealed against the decision of the court administration.
Hearing his appeal on Friday, a court of judges Ishwar Khatiwada and Hari Krishna Phuyal had ordered the court administration to register the court petitions filed by Aran and Budhathoki against Dahal.
Addressing an event organized at Khula Manch in Kathmandu on the occasion of Maghi on January 15, 2020, Dahal refuted allegations that he had killed 17,000 people during the decade-long Maoist armed conflict, but said he would take responsibility for the death of 5,000 of those killed during that period. He had also said that he would take responsibility for everything good and bad that happened during the armed conflict.
The petition filed Tuesday seeks a warrant to arrest Dahal based on the statement he made then.
