The Supreme Court on Sunday issued a show cause notice to the government on a case challenging the notice to ban the retransmission of BBC Nepali Service programs on Radio Sagarmatha.

Acting on a writ petition filed on Friday, a single bench of acting Chief Justice Kedar Prasad Giri asked the concerned government authorities to appear before the court on December 7 with a clarification.

Bhupendra Basnet, general secretary of the Nepal Forum for Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), which runs Radio Sagarmatha, had filed a writ petition against the government’s notice to the FM station to stop up-linking the BBC Service.

The Ministry of Information and Communication had given the order even as the apex court issued a stay order over the government ban on newscasts on FM radios last week.