The show cause order issued by a single bench of Justice Prakash Wosti comes in response to a petition filed by Advocate Mukunda Adhikari who sought a court intervention to ensure that the head of state calls the first meeting of the CA.

The SC has also asked the President's Office to furnish a reply by January 13, the date when the court is scheduled to hear the case at a special bench.

The bench has also sought two amicus curaie from Nepal Bar Association and Supreme Court Bar Association to assist the court in the matter. The government, the President's Office and the political parties are at loggerheads over who should call the first CA meeting.

Petitioner Adhikari maintains that the Interim Constitution—Article 69 (1)— has a clear provision that it is the executive head who should call the meeting. If the head of state is conferred the authority to call the meeting, he said, the act would be unconstitutional.

The order of the apex court comes a day before the court is scheduled to hear another petition that argues just the opposite — that it is the president, not the head of government, who should call the meet.

In the petition, Advocate Biswas Acharya maintains that it is an international practice for the head of state to call meeting of the CA and session of the Parliament. Responding to the petition, the court has already asked the executive head to explain why the president cannot call the CA meet.