CC decides against new timeline

KATHMANDU, Feb 12: Unlike the meeting of the three major parties, UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and CPN-UML had agreed a day earlier, the Constitutional Committee Sunday decided not to set a new timeline for resolving the remaining disputed issues of constitution writing.



A CC meeting, held in Singha Dubar, instead decided to try to sort out all the contentious issues treating them as a whole till the last moment before May 29, the deadline for Constituent Assembly to promulgate the new constitution, UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal told reporters after the meeting. [break]



In case leaders fail to settle the disputes, chiefly related to state restructuring and forms of governance, the issues will be taken to CA full house for their settlement, Khanal informed.



Elaborating on the rationale of the CC decision, its Chairman Nilambar Acharya said some of the issues, particularly those related to state restructuring and the peace process, fall beyond the committee’s jurisdiction and as such he said there is not point revising the work schedule that has undergone amendment for more than 14 times now.



As CC alone cannot settle these outstanding issues, their settlement will be sought through broader political consensus, Acharya added.



With the existing CA work schedule expiring today,  the three major parties during a joint meeting Saturday had decided to work out a new calender of event to settle  individual sets of constitution writing tasks in a time-specific manner.

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