After failing to take a unanimous decision under Clause 119 of the parliament’s procedural law, the committee attached all the documents related to the complaints against the nominees and other documents and sent the file to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “for necessary action”. [break]
Committee members were divided over the fate of Dr Sukhdev Shah, a nominee for ambassadorial position for USA. Most of the members claimed that they should make the parliament hearing meaningful by unanimously rejecting Shah’s nomination. They argued that Shah was a US Green Card holder, has stayed in USA for more than four decades and could in no way represent the country.
He was nominated by Madhesi People’s Rights Forum. NC and Maoist members indirectly supported Shah’s nomination to save him from being unanimously rejected.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Suresh Pradhan’s nomination for Germany was also a controversy throughout the hearing process but the committee members on Thursday concluded that Pradhan was innocent as far as the accusation against him of leaking a secret dossier was concerned.
Complainant against Forum nominee for ambassadorial position in UK Dr Ram Swarth Ray had later denied filing the complaint, making his case not so disputed.
When some members objected to two names, all names came under dispute. Though there were no complaint filed against two Maoist nominees for the position -- Chandra Kanta Poudel (India) and Surendra Kumar Karki (France), the committee took a blanket decision and forwarded all the names to the Ministry as disputed.
The government is obliged to drop the nomination only if the committee rejects any nomination unanimously. “When the committee cannot take unanimous decision to accept or reject the nominations, we simply forward all the documents to authorities concerned for necessary action as per Clause 119 (5) of the procedural regulations of the Legislature-Parliament,” he said.
The regulations, full of loopholes, were criticized by the committee members last week for making the hearing meaningless.
“Even if a member in the 71-member committee accepts the nomination, there is no meaning of others’ rejection,” said Narayan Man Bijukchhe, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party leader and a member of the committee. “Absence of senior leaders from all the parties in the hearing has further minimized the importance of the hearing,” he said.
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