Hearing on Legitimacy of RCCC Deferred Again

Kathmandu, Dec 9-Hearing continued at the Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday on the case that challenged the legitimacy of the Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC). The SC deferred the hearing till December 14, as the petitioners failed to complete their pleading thrusday.

Lawyers pleading against the formation of the Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC) claimed that the government attorneys and RCCC’s lawyers have tried to mislead the Supreme Court by putting forth irresponsible and baseless arguments during hearing on the case that challenges the constitutionality the royal commission. “This is irresponsible to claim that the 1962 constitution is still alive and the King can act under it,” said defence lawyer Hari Krishna Karki. “It is a baseless and irresponsible claim.” “The arguments put forward by the government and the RCCC’s lawyers proved that they want to take refuge of the 1962 Constitution after they failed to justify the constitutionality of the formation of royal commission under the 1990 Constitution,” he said.

Karki was pleading before the special bench of justices Kedar Prasad Giri, Min Bahadur Rayamajhi, Ram Nagina Singh, Anup Raj Sharma and Ram Prasad Shrestha, which is testing the constitutionality of the commission. “Their arguments also clarifies that the 1990 Constitution does not give a room to the King to form such a body like the RCCC,” he added.

Advocate Hari Prasad Uprety also said the lawyers of the RCCC were unqualified and were not appointed illegally. Pleading on behalf of RCCC, senior advocate Laxmi Bahadur Nirala claimed the royal commission was formed due to the result of the political failure in the recent past and thus the apex court cannot test the legality of the commission.

Advocates Abadhesh Kumar Singh, Dharma Raj Regmi and Basudev Sharma also pleaded on behalf of the royal commission. They also claimed that the SC cannot test the King’s moves.
The apex court is likely to fix a date to announce a verdict on the case on next Wednesday as the hearing is expected to complete till then.