KATHMANDU, JUNE 22
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority today filed a charge sheet at the Special Court against 11 persons, including former vice-chairperson and chief administrative officer of Molung Rural Municipality, Okhaldhunga, for their alleged involvement in corruption on the pretext of carrying out development activities.
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Those sued by the anti-graft body are former rural municipality vice-chair Hem Kumari Tamang, former CAO Santosh Shrestha, engineer Madhav Niraula, assistant sub-engineer Shiva Prasad Adhikari, chair of ward No 2 Tanka Bahadur Karki, and office-bearers of road construction user committee Dipendra Rai, Bhajtarak Rai and Nanmaya Rai.
According to a press release issued by the CIAA, they had colluded to embezzle Rs 382,050 in the course of constructing a road from Kaphalbot to Holpu Mission Hospital in ward No 2 of the rural municipality through the user committee during the fiscal 2018-19.
The CIAA had launched a wide-ranging investigation into the case after it received a corruption complaint.
During the probe, it was found that they had created a fake file to show the road construction without carrying out any work.
On the basis of the fake file, the project amount was paid to the user committee to share cash among them later.
Similarly, the office-bearers of the user committee had received the payment for 'construction of road' as per the fake file presented by the rural municipality officers.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 23, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
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Write comment (99 Comments)KATHMANDU, JUNE 22
The Supreme Court has paved the way for implementation of the citizenship bill certified by President Ramchandra Paudel by vacating its own short-term stay order.
Apex court order justifies decision to vacate short-term stay order
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A division bench of Justices Ananda Mohan Bhattarai and Kumar Regmi vacated the short-term stay order issued earlier by a single bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma.
The top court is yet to prepare its order.
The new citizenship act benefits children of citizens by birth and single mothers whose fathers remain untraced.
In the absence of new citizenship law, thousands of eligible citizens were not able to obtain their citizenship and some of them protested at Maitighar Mandala.
Today, those protesters cheered the SC order.
Senior advocates Surendra Bhandari and Bal Krishna Neupane, had, on June 2 filed a petition at the Supreme Court demanding nullification of the citizenship bill that President Ramchandra Paudel signed into law. The bill was pocket vetoed by former president Bidhya Devi Bhandari, which many jurists believe was a violation of the constitution.
Article 113 (4) of the constitution mandates the president to authenticate a bill passed twice by the Parliament. The citizenship bill was sent to then president Bhandari twice.
On the first occasion, Bhandari sent the bill back to the House with her objections and the Parliament repassed the bill without any change and sent it to her for approval but she neither returned the bill nor gave her assent.
President Bhandari's refusal to sign the bill on the second occasion was cheered by some, including the CPN-UML, but many other forces, including the Nepali Congress, the CPN- MC, Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal and Loktantrik Samjwadi Party derided her action saying the president, who was a titular head of state, had no power to veto the bill the second time and scuttle the people's will expressed by the Parliament.
Those who supported Bhandari's action/inaction said she did the right thing as the bill infringed on the constitution and did not incorporate the seven-year waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation.
The ruling party said the bill contained almost the same provisions that then government led by UML Chair KP Sharma Oli had put in the citizenship bill that was stayed by the Supreme Court.
Sabin Shrestha, executive director, Forum for Women, Law and Development whose organisation had made third-party intervention in the case, welcomed the SC order but cautioned that children of citizens by birth and single mothers may face practical hurdles in obtaining citizenship and his office would start para legal and logistical support for those who may face such hurdles. "Our CDOs are often found to have prejudice and patriarchal mindset so they might create problems for eligible citizens, but we are ready to support the applicants," Shrestha said.
Petitioners Bhandari and Neupane had stated in their petition that President Paudel had stated he signed the citizenship bill into law under Article 61 and 66, which, according to them, he could not do.
They argued that the citizenship bill passed by the previous Parliament had died with the end of the tenure of the previous House of Representatives.
The Cabinet cannot give legitimacy to this bill and send it to the president for authentication, they argued. Stating that Article 113 (1) gave power only to the speaker and the National Assembly Chair to recommend authentication of the bill to the president, the petitioners said the Cabinet could not recommend to the president to authenticate a bill.
President Paudel had authenticated the bill after the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led Cabinet wrote a letter to the president urging him to endorse the bill which had been kept at Shital Niwas.
The petitioners duo argued that Article 113 (4) of the constitution set a deadline of 15 days for authentication of the bill and the president had no power to extend the 15-day deadline. Therefore, the act of authentication was malicious and arbitrary.
The petitioners sought a writ of mandamus to tell lawmakers to revise the citizenship bill after comprehensive discussion in the House. The petitioners also argued that the open border could be misused by foreigners who could try to obtain Nepali citizenship and render the original inhabitants of the country into a minority.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 23, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
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Read more: SC vacates short-term stay order
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