Acting on the recommendation of the Sushila Karki–led government formed in the wake of the Gen Z protests, President Ramchandra Paudel dissolved the House of Representatives on September 12.

While all the lawmakers of the lower house lost their position from the same day, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker continue to hold the position as per Article 91 (6) of the Constitution of Nepal which states they can continue in office until the previous day of the filing of nominations for another election to the House of Representatives.

However, it doesn’t specify whether the nomination day refers to the proportional representation (PR) category or the first-past-the-past (FPTP).

The Election Commission has slated Monday and Tuesday to submit the closed list of candidates under the PR category. Speaker Devraj Ghimire and Deputy Speaker Indira Rana will have to resign by Sunday if they take the nomination for the PR category into reference.

However, Ghimire and Rana don’t seem to be in the mood to do so. They are willing to wait until the nomination for direct election. The commission has slated January 20 for FPTP nomination which means they will only put in papers on January 19. This will give them around a month more to continue in the office.

“The Speaker is citing the example of his immediate predecessor to continue in office until the previous day of the FPTP nomination,” said a senior official at the Parliament Secretariat.

After the 2017 election, CPN (Maoist Centre) leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara became Speaker. He was forced to resign from the post midway after he was arrested for alleged rape.

He was succeeded by Agni Sapkota from the same party.

Sapkota stepped down from the position only on the day before the registration of FPTP candidates for the 2022 general election. For the House of Representatives and Provincial Assembly elections scheduled for November 20, 2022, the Election Commission had set September 18 and 19, 2022 as the dates for submitting the closed list of proportional representation candidates, and October 9, 2022 as the date for registering candidacies under the direct system. Sapkota decided to quit on October 8, 2022.

“Speaker Ghimire is hopeful for the reinstatement of the House and thus wants to remain in office for as long as possible,” the official said. Ghimire, who was elected on the CPN-UML ticket from Jhapa-2, strongly advocates for the reinstatement of the lower house. As many as 19 writ petitions including by the UML and Nepali Congress lawmakers have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking its reinstatement. The court has announced to hear all the petitions together continually. It, however, is yet to announce the date.

Legal experts say as the constitution doesn’t specify which nomination the Speaker needs to heed, it should be determined by the court. “I believe this issue needs to be decided by the Supreme Court,” said Laxmi Gautam, joint secretary at the legal department of the secretariat. Though a writ petition was filed in the top court, the case has been put on hold without a verdict.

Over the years, Speakers have been making decisions the way it suits them.

After the constitution was promulgated in 2015, Onsari Gharti became the Speaker. She resigned from the post a day before submitting the closed proportional representation list because she was elected under the PR system. However, Sapkota from her party, who was elected under FPTP, waited until the nomination for direct election.