Elections 2022

The Supreme Court has issued an interim order favouring the candidacy of Dr Toshima Karki, who is contesting the election from Lalitpur-3 for a seat in the House of Representatives.

The single bench of Justice Kumar Chudal issued the order in the name of the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday. The order came two days after the commission disqualified Dr Karki’s candidacy, saying she held a public post as an elected member of the Nepal Medical Council.

But the Rastriya Swatantra Party candidate challenged the commission’s decision at the court, arguing that she did not receive any salary or allowance from the council. She maintained that the council is a non-profit medical entity.

Although her candidacy remains intact for now, the commission’s next move will determine the course of her legal battle. If the commission petitions again with sufficient evidence, the case will be taken up by a division bench of the apex court. 

If the division bench's ruling goes along the lines of the interim order, Dr Karki’s candidacy will remain intact. However, if the commission produces unimpeachable pieces of evidence and the division bench overturns the single bench's ruling, her celebration will be short-lived.

But even before the final verdict, Karki, formerly a general surgeon at the Patan Academy of Health Sciences, has been celebrating her “victory” in the apex court, going live on Facebook and stating that “justice has been done”. 

In her Facebook post – tagged to lawyers Bhimarjun Acharya, Surendra Bhandari and Lalit Basnet, Om Prakash Aryal, Madhukumar Chaulagain and Dinesh Tripathi – she has thanked “all media” outlets for supporting her. 

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