Four separate writ petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to annul the oath taken by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on May 14.

Senior Advocate Chandra Kant Gyawali, Advocate Raj Kumar Suwal, Advocate Santosh Bhandari and Advocate Nawaraj Adhikari have filed separate writ petitions in the Supreme Court on Monday.

They have filed a writ petition to nullify the oath taken by PM Oli, saying he had read out a different oath than what the President recited to him.

The petitioners have also demanded that Oli be administered the oath of office and secrecy again and that he should be not allowed to assume the prime ministerial position until then.

A writ petition filed by senior advocates Gyawali, advocates Lokendra Bahadur Oli and Keshar Mani KC has demanded that the oath of office of the Prime Minister be nullified and the newly appointed ministers, who are no longer members of parliament, be sacked.

Stating that the Prime Minister should repeat the exact same words recited by the President while taking the oath, the writ petition reads that Oli had not said the word ‘I pledge’ during his oath-taking ceremony and when the President repeated the words, Oli insisted “it is not necessary” (to say ‘I pledge’) instead and dismissed the President.

The writ petition also calls for the immediate enactment of a federal law on the format of the oath to be taken by the prime minister and ministers. As no federal law has been enacted so far, the format of the oath to be taken by the Prime Minister and the Minister has not been formulated yet and the writ has demanded the apex court to issue a directive for the same.

Similarly, the petitioners have demanded the appointment of non-parliamentary ministers, including Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Lekhraj Bhatt, Gauri Shankar Chaudhary, Mani Chandra Thapa and Dawa Lama be revoked.

The writ petition claims that appointment of non-lawmakers as a minister is against the constitution.

A person who is not a member of the House of Representatives and the National Assembly can be a Minister, but there is a constitutional obligation for the appointed Minister to become a member of the Federal Parliament within six months of taking oath, as per the constitution.

Minister for Water Supply Mani Thapa and Minister for Youth and Sports Dawa Lama, who are not lawmakers, were first sworn in as ministers on December 25, 2020.

Similarly, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Lekhraj Bhatt, Prabhu Sah and Gauri Shankar Chaudhary, who lost their parliamentary seats after leaving the CPN-Maoist and joining the CPN-UML, were sworn in as ministers on April 10.

Ram Bahadur Thapa was sworn in on April 18, 2021.

Likewise, advocates Santosh Bhandari, Ram Bahadur Shahi, Tej Kumar Lohia, Prakriti Khadka and Bir Bhadra Joshi have demanded to annul Oli’s oath stating that he had taken the oath against the provisions of the constitution.

“All officials must take their oaths exactly as they are administered — word by word. One simply cannot just say what they like and one certainly mustn’t dictate the president,” the writ petition has said.

Similarly, an order has been sought not to allow Oli to act as the Prime Minister until he re-takes the oath in line with the constitution and law.