Queency Jain –
The two-judge bench of Nepal’s Supreme Court has removed 20 cabinet members recently appointed by Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli thereby pending take a final decision later on whether a caretaker premier can make such changes or not.
Though the State of Nepal is struggling with the second wave of Coronavirus, the state faced political turmoil when PM Oli lost a vote of confidence in May 2021.
After losing confidence, Oli declared fresh elections to be held in November thereby staying on the position of caretaker Prime Minister until the fresh elections take place.
While many petitions were filed challenging the dissolution of parliament by Oli, in order to stay in power and ditch opponents, Oli replaced around 20 of its cabinet members with the members of Junior Coalition Partner.
Hearing the petitions, the Court observed that the appointment was against the spirit of the constitution and for that reason, the Court removed 20 ministers from the cabinet thereby leaving only 5 ministers in the cabinet of Prime Minister Oli, including him.
Even though Prime Minister Oli has not given any comments on removal, his aide Rajan Bhattarai called the order to be politically incorrect.