Kathmandu, June 11
The Supreme Court on Sunday failed to conduct a hearing on a writ filed against the Election Commission’s decision to redo voting in ward 19 of Bharatpur Metropolitan City in Chitwan district.
Earlier, the hearing was scheduled on a division bench of Justice duo Bishwambhar Prasad Shrestha and Prakash Man Singh Raut.
However, the hearing was not held citing lack of time.
A single bench of Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana on June 5 had ordered that the Commission’s decision be put on hold till the next round of hearing scheduled for today.
Both plaintiffs and defendants had been summoned for the hearing today and it was expected that the bench would decide whether to issue an interim order against the decision.
The CPN-UML ward member candidate Gunjaman BK and advocate Tulsiram Pandey, who happens to be a voter from the same ward, had filed the writ demanding that the Commission’s decision be annulled and the halted counting be resumed by declaring torn 90 ballot papers as invalid.
The Election Commission on June 3 had decided to redo the poll in Bharatpur after some Maoist cadres reportedly torn ballot papers while the vote counting was underway.
The ruling Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist Centre, which had formed an election alliance, had demanded the revoting whereas the main opposition UML was in favour of resuming the vote counting delcaring the torn ballot papers invalid.
The NC-MC candidate Renu Dahal was lagging behind UML’s Devi Gyawali by few hundred votes in the mayoral race while the counting was halted after the incident.
