KATHMANDU, March 1: The hearing of the army recruitment case, that began Sunday morning, would continue Tuesday.
Earlier, the government lawyer Yubaraj Subedi defended the recruitment saying it was in accordance with the existing laws. Subedi also said that it was necessary for it was a sensitive issue of the state. [break]
The Nepal Army (NA) has also hired private lawyers to defend its case in the Supreme Court (SC) Sunday. Those privy to the army´s decision said that the NA was unsure whether or not the government legal team would defend the recruitment -- against which the SC had issued stay order a few days ago in response to a writ petition challenging it -- as the Defense Mimistry was opposed to the recruitment.
The writ petition was filed by INHURED International on February 20 against the recruitment. The bench of justices Bal Ram KC and Abdesh Kumar Yadav is hearing the case.
Senior advocate Harihar Dahal, advocates Sambhu Thapa, Madhav Basnet, Tika Ram Bhattarai, Bhimarjun Acharya, Narendra Raj Pathak, Chandra Kant Gyawali, Kumar Regmi, and Bal Krishna Neupane, among others, are defending the army’s decision to continue the process.
Both the Defense Ministry and the Nepal Army, which have publicly expressed contradictory views over the recruitment, have been named co-defendants in the case.
This is a rare instance where the Attorney General Office is having to defend two organs of the government -- Defense Ministry and the Nepal Army which is under it -- on a case in which these two are have differed so sharply. In defending the Defense Ministry (which too is against the recruitment of 2,884 personnel), the government legal team will effectively be arguing against the Nepal Army.
A single bench of Justice Anup Raj Sharma had issued an interim order last week to stop the recruitment process till today. The court will decide whether to continue Sharma’s order or not.
Lawyers say that this is the first time so far a government body (the NA in this case) hired private lawyers to defend its case. Generally government lawyers are required to defend cases involving government bodies before any court of law.
According to knowledgeable sources, NA hired the private lawyers after the Office of the Attorney General could not assure whether it could defend the army in the SC during the hearing today.
Govt lawyers to cite CPA, UNMIN letter
The team of government lawyers is going to argue the case by citing Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2006 and a recent letter by the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) over the recruitment row. The then UNMIN chief Ian Martin had written the letter reminding all sides that any recruitment was against the letter and spirit of the CPA.
We are not trying to influence the court: Mahato
Minister for Commerce and Supplies and Sadbhavana Party leader Rajendra Mahato said the five ruling parties did not intend to influence the court decision by taking up army recruitment issue but just discussed what response the government should give to SC.
“We arrived at a conclusion that the training of the recruits should not be halted as demanded by the petitioner,” said Mahato. “But we have to wait for the court’s final decision on whether the process was wrong or right.” He said the five parties would respect the court decision.
The five parties in the ruling coalition held a meeting at the prime minister’s official residence at Baluwatar Saturday to discuss the recruitment row and reopening investigation into the 2001 royal palace massacre, among others.
A leader at the meeting said that some leaders criticized Defense Minister for not handling the issue properly and coming up with allegations and counter allegations. But Thapa was not present at the meeting.
Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)’s deputy leader in Constituent Assembly Narayan Kaji Shrestha, in media briefing after the meeting, had claimed that the high-level mechanism of the five parties had "concluded" that the Nepal Army made a mistake by going ahead with its recruitment ignoring the Defense Ministry’s orders against it.
Other leaders, however, have rubbished Shrestha´s claim.
kiran@myrepublica.com
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