The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued an interlocutory interim order against the decision to cancel the process of appointment of chairman of the Securities Board of Nepal.

According to Govinda Ghimire, the court’s information officer, a single bench of Justice Abdul Aziz Musalman ordered the appointment process on hold until Friday. The bench also ordered both parties to be present before the court to discuss whether to issue an interim order, as sought by the petitioner.

The bench was responding to a writ petition filed by Santosh Narayan Shrestha, one of the shortlisted candidates for the position.

The Ministry of Finance issued a notice on Friday stating that the recommendation process was cancelled. The process was cancelled after only two out of five shortlisted candidates appeared for the interview.

On January 17, the government formed a three-member committee led by the vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission, Min Bahadur Shrestha, to recommend a candidate for chairman of Sebon to the Cabinet. Two members of the committee were Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini and Prof Udaya Niraula.

As per the mandate, the Shrestha-led committee on February 28 invited applications from interested individuals. However, the Finance Ministry’s notice on Friday announced that the entire recommendation process was cancelled.

Earlier, responding to the committee’s call, 19 candidates had submitted their applications to lead the country’s only security board. The recommendation committee later shortlisted five candidates for the interview.

The five shortlisted candidates were Nabaraj Adhikari, Chiranjivi Chapagain, Krishna Bahadur Karki, Mukti Nath Shrestha, and Santosh Shrestha. However, only two candidates, Mukti Nath Shrestha and Santosh Shrestha, appeared in the interview.

After only two candidates appeared in the interview, the recommendation committee informed the three candidates—Adhikari, Chapagain, and Karki—to reappear in the interview and set a new date.

Despite this, the three did not appear in the interview the second time. As per the Sebon Act, it is compulsory to recommend at least three names to the Cabinet for the final selection.

When the committee failed to recommend three names even after the second round, the Shrestha-led committee sought legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General. The Office of the Attorney General communicated to the recommendation committee that the entire selection process would be invalid if three names were not recommended to the Cabinet.

The government has already formed a new recommeendation committee for the appointment process.