KATHMANDU, Oct 23: The Supreme Court on Sunday refused to issue a stay order against the Election Directives, 2017.
A division bench of justices Om Prakash Mishra and Dambar Bahadur Shahi declined to issue the order as sought by a lawyer in a writ petition challenging the directives on the ground that it contradicts Section 60(8) of the Member of the House of Representatives Election Act, 2017.
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“Since the matter can be decided after the final hearing, there is no need to issue stay order as demanded,” the bench ruled. Although the Act requires all parties including even those which do not secure at least 10 percent seats under the proportional representation (PR) system to allocate 33 percent seats for women and respect other principles of inclusion, the Election Directives are lax about the inclusion provisions while fielding candidates under the PR system.
Dipendra Jha, in the petition, had demanded that the EC directives relating to picking candidates for parliamentary and provincial assembly elections should be quashed and the Election Commission should be ordered to formulate its bylaws and directives as per the newly passed law on Election of the Members of House of Representatives and Election of Provincial Assembly Members.
