The Supreme Court (SC) did not have time on Thursday to hear the written petitions registered in it against the President and Prime Minister (PM) Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the CPN (Maoist Center).
The single court of Judge Bishwambhar Shrestha was scheduled to hear the writ petitions and the case was listed as the fourth to be heard by the Shrestha court on Thursday. But the bench could not listen to him due to lack of time, according to the SC website.
The petition from 14, including defenders Gyanendra Aran and Kalyan Budhathoki, and another from Chiranjeevi Giri, were registered on Tuesday.
Aran and Budhathoki had approached the Supreme Court with separate petitions in November 2022 seeking a warrant to arrest Dahal and take any 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 lawsuits 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.
The vice president election is scheduled for March 17.
