After Supreme Court intervention and last minute hiccups over his appointment letter, Sher Bahadur Deuba on Tuesday formally became the Prime Minister of Nepal for a record fifth time. The 75-year-old veteran politician and Nepali Congress President took the oath of office and secrecy from President Vidya Devi Bhandari during the swearing-in ceremony, which was delayed by more than two hours.
The ceremony, initially scheduled to be held at 6:00 pm (17:45 IST), took place at around 8:15 pm after the President’s Office issued a fresh appointment notice. After the delay in the oath ceremony, the Nepali Congress Party took exception to the Office of the President’s statement which did not mention the constitutional provision under which Deuba was appointed prime minister. A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana in its order on Monday said Deuba should be appointed as the Prime Minister under Article 76(5) of the Constitution.
According to Article 76(5), any member of the House of Representatives who presents a ground on which he can secure a vote of confidence in the House is appointed as Prime Minister. With Deuba insisting on a fresh appointment notice, President Bhandari agreed to his condition and appointed him under Article 76(5) of the Constitution, resolving the last-minute bottleneck.
Deuba’s appointment ended KP Sharma Oli’s more significant three-and-a-half-year tenure as Prime Minister. Four new ministers – two each from the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-Maoist Center – also took the oath of office as part of Deuba’s small cabinet.
NC’s Balkrishna Khand and Gyanendra Bahadur Karki took oath as Home Minister and Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister respectively. From the Maoist Centre, Pampa Bhusal and Janardan Sharma have been appointed as Energy Minister and Finance Minister respectively.
Chief Justice Rana, CPN-Maoist Center President Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and senior CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal were also present on the occasion. Deuba previously served as Prime Minister of Nepal four times from June 2017–February 2018, June 2004–February 2005, July 2001–October 2002 and September 1995–March 1997.
Earlier, outgoing Prime Minister Oli accused the top court of “deliberately” passing the verdict in favor of the opposition parties. Oli, 69, claimed that most of the people still supported him but he was on his way to implement the top court’s order. He said the government was successful as it expedited development works across the country and made efforts to control the Covid-19 crisis.
Oli said he wants general elections to be held in the country at the earliest, hoping that his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) CPN-(UML) will emerge victorious again. Oli, using his party’s election symbol sun as a term, said that clouds may hide the sun for some time but it will soon rise again. According to constitutional provisions, Deuba is required to obtain a vote of confidence from the 275-member House of Representatives within 30 days of his appointment as Prime Minister.
The Supreme Court on Monday overturned Prime Minister Oli’s May 21 decision to dissolve the House of Representatives and ordered the appointment of Deuba as prime minister. It said that Oli’s claim to the post of prime minister is unconstitutional.
Restoration of the House – The court had earlier restored the House on February 23 when Oli dissolved it on December 20 – the bench ordered arrangements to hold the sitting of the House by 5 pm on July 18 gave. In its order, the Constitutional Bench held that President Bhandari’s decision to reject Deuba’s claim to form the new government was unconstitutional.
Oli, who was leading a minority government after losing a vote of confidence in the House, has repeatedly defended his move to dissolve the House of Representatives, saying that some of his party leaders were trying to form a “parallel government”. Were. Meanwhile, Nepal’s Attorney General Ramesh Badal resigned on Tuesday. Badal, as legal advisor to the government of Nepal and other government officials, had argued against the reinstatement of the House of Representatives, on which the Supreme Court on Monday decided to reinstate it. An interim order was issued for
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