The Supreme Court (SC) on March 7 invalidated the unification between the erstwhile Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist–Leninist (CPN-UML) led by KP Sharma Oli and Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre (CPN-Maoist Centre) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal that took place in 2018, reports Republica. A joint bench of justices Kumar Regmi and Bam Kumar Shrestha issued the verdict giving authenticity of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) to Rishi Kattel, who had registered the party at the Election Commission (EC) in his name prior to the formation of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led by Oli and Dahal. The apex court has ruled that the existence of CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Center now exist as they existed prior to the formation of the NCP. The two parties had announced unification on May 17, 2018. With the apex court’s verdict, the NCP’s 174 seats in Parliament will now be divided based on the number of seats won by the CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Center prior to their merger into the NCP after the parliamentary election in 2017.