Two separate contempt of court cases have been filed against four former Supreme Court chief justices.

Advocates Lochan Bhattarai and Dhanjit Basnet registered separate cases against former chief justices Min Bahadur Rayamajhi, Anup Raj Sharma, Kalyan Shrestha and Sushila Karki, on Wednesday.

“Two separate petitions have been filed claiming that the joint statement by four former chief justices is an attempt to influence a sub-judice case,” Kishor Poudel, a communication expert at the Supreme Court, told the Post.

The retired chief justices on January 8 had made a joint statement saying that the Constitution of Nepal doesn’t allow the Oli government to dissolve the House of Representatives.

In the statement, the former chief justices had said that the articles that have been cited for the dissolution of the House don’t empower the prime minister to do so.

“Article 76 of Nepal’s constitution does not have any provision for dissolving the House unless for the purpose of forming a Council of Ministers but the House of Representatives is found to have been dissolved by invoking articles which don’t attract the move,” the former chief justices had stated.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari had dissolved the House on December 20 on the recommendation of the Oli government that had cited Articles 85, 76 (1), 76 (7).

On Tuesday, two cases of contempt of court were registered at the Supreme Court against Oli.

Senior advocate Kumar Sharma Acharya and advocate Kanchan Krishna Neupane had filed the contempt of court cases against Oli for using disparaging remarks against legal practitioners and trying to influence the court.