House of Representativesl (File Photo)
The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday has refused to register a writ petition that challenged the constitutionality of the Proclamation made by the reinstated House of Representatives (HoR) last month.

Acting Registrar at the SC, Dr Ram Krishna Timalsena, declined to register the petition by advocate Achyut Prasad Kharel saying that the petitioner could not cite a provision to test the constitutionality of the proclamation.

“Since Clause 9 of the HoR proclamation says that the provisions of the constitution of 1990 and existing laws on the country would be automatically nullified if they contradicted the proclamation, there is no need to test the constitutionality of the declaration,” Timalsena said in his explanatory note. The petition was rejected as per the Rule 27(2) and (3) of the Supreme Court Regulation, 1992.

Kharel filed the petition saying that since most of the provisions of the proclamation contradicted the constitution of Nepal, 1990, the apex court should test its constitutionality. He claimed that since the prcolamation was not a constitution and did not state that it had amended the 1990 statute, it was merely a political document and could not be taken as superior to the existing constitution.

HoR proclamation adopted by the House last month drastically reduced the royal powers, brought the army under hte purview of the parliament and changed the name of His majesty’s Government of Nepal as the Nepal government, among others.