President Yadav issued the order Thursday after Wednesday´s cabinet meeting recommended to the head of state to remove difficulties in amending the statute. Yadav ordered to suspend a restrictive provision in the Article 85 (1) and the sub-clause 85 (2) as demanded by the government as it lacked sufficient time for amending the statute.[break]
As per the provisions to be suspended, an advance notice of five days should be given to the secretary general or the secretary of parliament and that a copy of the bill should be made available to every lawmaker two days in advance of the day of the presentation of the bill.
As the government wants to table the budget and endorse the vote on account bill on Friday by amending the constitution on the same day, it wanted to suspend the provisions of the Interim Constitution from the president.
The government wanted to add a sub-clause under the Article 96-A, which is the special provision relating to revenues and expenditures, to pave the way for tabling the annual budget as UCPN (Maoist) objected to the introduction of budget by the present government due to its caretaker status.
Top leaders from the major parties on Tuesday agreed to pave the way for presenting the budget by adding a sub-clause.
Issuing a joint statement, seven parties including CPN (ML-Socialist), CPN (Ekikrit), Nepal Sadbhabana Party, Nepali Janata Dal, Nepaa Rastriya Party, Rastriya Janamukti Party and Sanghiya Loktantrik Rastriya Party termed the caretaker government´s move of asking the president to suspend a constitutional provision as unconstitutional and against the parliamentary practice.
Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal also criticized the government move.
Also, leaders from various parties criticized major political parties at a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of parliament on Thursday afternoon for the big three parties´ decision to suggest to the head of state to suspend the constitutional provisions.
According to Keshav Mainali of Chure-Bhawar Rastriya Ekta Party, leaders from Madhesi People´s Rights Forum, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party and Mainali himself fiercely criticized the major parties´ decision.
They said while Maoists were against allowing the caretaker government to accomplish even minor tasks, the Maoists committed a blunder by entrusting the same cabinet with a very serious task like suspending constitutional provisions.
After that Speaker Subas Nembang and chief whips of the UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML had to defer the BAC meeting for Friday.
Leaders said the government should have registered the bill at Parliament Secretariat at least a week ago for the purpose so as to avoid suspension of the statutory provisions from the president.
Even NC leaders were against the suspension of the provisions. NC Chief Whip Laxman Ghimire said it was avoidable.
"It happened due to serious negligence by the government and particularly by the finance minister. The government should have registered the bill at the secretariat earlier because Maoists had been demanding amendment of the provisions since couple of weeks ago," Ghimire said.
thirbhusal5@gmail.com
Related story
Former lawmakers’ forum mounts pressure to legitimize its statu...
