KATHMANDU, Dec 29: The joint task force on legislation of the ruling party Nepali Congress-UML has initiated the discussion on setting the deadline for passing the bills that have come to the House of Representatives (HoR). The current regulations have not specified a deadline for passing the bill. If the bill could not be passed due to the regulations, the joint task force agreed that a deadline should be set and the former regulations should be amended.
NC chief whip Shyam Kumar Ghimire, a member of the task force, said that the task force discussed a phase about setting the deadline. However, he noted that the decision on how many days to keep is yet to be made.
He said there was a discussion about making provisions in the regulations to ensure that bills are passed within a rough time frame of 90 days. Any new bill will remain in committee for 60 days and in the HoR for 30 days. He said that both bills should be passed within 90 days.
“If there are agreed-upon issues in the bill in the committee, it will be presented in the HoR within 60 days. The issues that are still pending will be presented in the HoR for approval. If the committee fails to pass any bill within 60 days, it will be presented in the HoR, and the HoR will form a subcommittee to pass it,” said Chief Whip Ghimire. There has also been an agreement on the provision that if the concerned committee requests more time to pass the bill, and if the HoR agrees to the time extension, the bill can be sent back to the committee.
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The member of the task force said that in the first stage, the committee will discuss how the bill can be passed in the next session, and then the issue of amending the regulations will be carried further.
The government should play a role in passing the bill. The concerned minister must be present when the above bill is discussed in the committee. If the minister is not present, the discussion on the bill will not proceed. There are many instances where the meeting of the committee called to discuss the bill is adjourned when the minister is not present. “Therefore, if the government does not cooperate it seems uncertain whether the parliamentary committee can pass the bill within the specified time frame, even if a deadline is set,” said an official from the Parliament Secretariat.
The State Affairs and Good Governance Committee has prepared to pass the Corruption Prevention (First Amendment) Bill, 2076 BS on January 2, 2025. The amendment bill of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority Act, which came in 2020, has not yet been passed.
In the two-year term of the Parliament, 12 bills have been passed, while 19 bills are currently in the committees and the sessions of the HoR. Additionally, there is one bill in the Bills Section in the National Assembly and four bills in the Legislation Committee. A member of the task force said that there is a time limit in the National Assembly, while the task force is preparing to discuss the rules of the HoR with other parties and make a decision.
In the meeting of the State Affairs Committee on November 16, Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak demanded from the parliament members to amend the rules by making a provision so that the bill introduced by the government would be passed if there was a delay in the drafting of the bill. The task force is facing a challenge to reach consensus on the School Education Bill, the Federal Civil Service Bill, which is related to the implementation of federalism.
The task force formed by the Congress and UML to advance the bill includes NC MP Jeevan Pariyar and UML MP Yogesh Bhattarai, chief whip of the House of Representatives, whip and whip member of the National Assembly.
