Supreme Court Issues Show-Cause Order to Election Commission Over Disqualified Candidate's Plea

Kathmandu. The Supreme Court, while hearing the writ petition filed by Kishori Sah Kamal, a Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) candidate whose candidacy was rejected by the Election Commission for Dhanusha Constituency No. 1, has issued a show-cause order in the name of the Election Commission. Justice Nripadhwaj Niraula's single bench issued the order on Monday.

Upon preliminary hearing of the certiorari writ filed by the petitioner Kishori Sah Kamal, naming the Election Commission as the respondent, the court has ordered the submission of a written response within seven days. As mentioned in the court's order, since the Election Commission had already issued a directive via a letter dated 2082/11/24 not to announce the election results for the first-past-the-post system in the concerned constituency, the announcement of the vote count remains stayed for now.

Although an interim order was sought to prevent the implementation of the decision to disqualify the candidacy, the court deemed it appropriate to hear both sides, considering the gravity and sensitivity of the matter. The order states, 'The respondents should be informed as soon as possible according to regulations to bring the file concerning the decision to disqualify the petitioner's candidacy dated 2082-11-18 from the respondent Commission and present it.'

The court has scheduled the next hearing for 2082 Falgun 29 to discuss whether to issue an interim order or not. A decision regarding the interim order will only be made after discussions between the Election Commission's representative and the petitioner on that day. Kishori Sah Kamal approached the Supreme Court seeking justice after the Election Commission decided to disqualify his candidacy on Falgun 18.

 The candidacy of Sah, the RSP candidate for Dhanusha Constituency No. 1, who entered politics through contracting, was canceled by the Election Commission following a complaint that he was on a blacklist. Information on the Credit Information Center website indicates that Kishorilal Sah of Kishor Construction was blacklisted on 2080 Poush 6 and 2079 Ashoj 31. The Election Commission canceled Sah's candidacy two days before the election.  

Here, the candidates are Ramchandra Mandal from CPN-UML, Ram Palatan Sah from Nepali Congress, and Matrika Prasad Yadav from the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN). The vote counting in this constituency has been completed, but the Election Commission has not published the results as the case is sub judice in the court.