January 13, Kathmandu 

Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Jabra has constituted a constitutional bench to hear the writ petition against the dissolution of the House of Representatives. Jabra has replaced Judge Harikrishna Karki with Sapna Malla Pradhan.

She became a proportional member of the Constituent Assembly from the then UML. The other judges in the Constitutional Court are still there.

Eleven of the 13 writ petitioners against the dissolution of the House of Representatives had filed a supplementary petition on December 7 demanding a hearing in the plenary session. However, Chief Justice Jabra has rejected that too and has constituted a constitutional bench.

On the recommendation of the Prime Minister, 13 writ petitions were filed against the decision of the President to dissolve the House of Representatives. Advocate Pravesh KC had filed the petition on behalf of the dissolved members of the House of Representatives Dev Prasad Gurung, Krishna Bhakta Pokhrel, Shashi Shrestha and Ram Kumari Jhankri.

Chief Justice Jabra had constituted a bench comprising Justices Harikrishna Karki, Vishwambhar Prasad Shrestha, Anil Kumar Sinha and Tej Bahadur KC to hear the writ petitions alleging that the dissolution of the parliament was unconstitutional.