No constitutional question anymore : AG

Attorney General Yagyamurti Banjade told the Supreme Court, that the government does not have to abide by the 1990 Constitution.

“Since the political regime has already changed, the 1990 Constitution may not be followed in the changed context,” Banjade said. “The House itself declared that it is the supreme body of the nation and the provisions of the existing Constitution and laws cannot apply if they contradicted with the declaration. So there is no question of going by the existing Constitution,” he said.

Banjade was arguing in the case testing the legality of the detention of former ministers Ramesh Nath Pandey, Shrish Sumsher Rana and Nikshya Sumsher Rana before a full bench comprising Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Paudel and Justices Min Bahadur Rayamajhi, Ram Nagina Singh, Anup Raj Sharma and Khil Raj Regmi. The Chief Justice put Justice Regmi on the bench after Justice Kedar Prasad Giri declined to be a member of the bench hearing the case. Banjade also claimed that King Gyanendra had transferred the state authority to the people and reinstated the House and as such there is no ground to test the government’s action.

He added that the former ministers were taken into preventive detention because they had started hatching conspiracies against the achievement of the Jana Andolan and they had suppressed the people’s movement by misusing power. Deputy AG Dorna Raj Regmi said there was no need to follow the SC’s precedents in the changed context.

Pleading on behalf of the former ministers, senior advocate Ganesh Raj Sharma argued that since the former ministers had advised the King to reinstate the House and to transfer power to the people, it was illogical to detain them. “The former ministers had contributed inestablishing Loktantra and as such it is wrong to detain them,” Sharma added.

He sought their release as it was illegal to detain them without any valid ground. “There is a need to tell the government in judicial language that there is nobody above the Constitution and the rule of law,” he added.

Advocates Bishnu Bhattarai and Balkrishna Neupane also termed the detention illegal and urged the court to release the former ministers.

The case has been deferred till next Sunday.