The Supreme Court has issued separate show cause notices to the then Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and his second-in-command Baburam Bhattarai in response to a petition against the forced conscription of child soldiers during the Maoist insurgency that began on 13 Feb 1996 and ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord on 21 Nov 2006. A single bench of Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla, conducting a preliminary hearing on the writ from nine child soldiers, including Lenin Bista, demanded written clarifications from the defendants, putting the case on priority. It has given Dahal, the current prime minister and chair of the CPN (Maoist Center), and former Maoist leader and prime minister Bhattarai 15 days to furnish written clarifications on the charges leveled against them in the petition. The two leaders can furnish their clarifications before the court in person or send in their legal representatives through the power of attorney. On medical grounds, they can get a further 15 days for furnishing clarifications. Bista and others had moved the apex court accusing the former rebels of committing war crimes by forcing minors to join military activities in contravention of national as well as international human rights laws.

Constitutional law expert Ananta Raj Luitel says the court can initiate legal action against the defendants if they fail to come clean on the charges.

On May 30, the apex court administration had refused to entertain the former child soldiers’ petition, pointing out that transitional justice mechanisms overseeing war-era cases are supposed to look into this case also. But a single bench of Justice Anand Mohan Bhattarai had ordered the court staff to register the petition against Dahal and Bhattarai. The verification of former PLA combatants, which the United Nations Mission in Nepal had conducted in 2007 for integrating former rebel soldiers into the Nepali Army, had disqualified thousands of Maoist combatants, including Bista, for being minors. Of the 4,008 disqualified combatants, 2,973 turned out to be minors while the remaining 1,035 were found to have joined the Maoist ‘People’s Liberation Army’ after the first ceasefire of 26 May 2006—six months before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the government of Nepal and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in 2006. The government had provided Rs 500,000-Rs 800,000 each to combatants opting for voluntary retirement, whereas the child soldiers had received token assistance from the United Nations.