For timely statute‚ registry of 12th amendment bill today

THT ONLINE

KATHMANDU: The government is all set to register the 12th amendment bill of the Interim Constitution at the Parliament Secretariat on Friday in order to shorten the process of statute-drafting.

Thursday’s Cabinet meet has directed to register the bill after major political parties agreed to amend the Article 70 of the Interim Constitution in order to shorten the constitution drafting process owing to the time constrain.

Notably, only 38 days are left to meet the May 27 deadline.

Article 70 states that each of the articles of the new constitution need to be endorsed one-by-one by a two-thirds majority.

The Law Ministry is slated to register the amendment bill in the Parliament as soon as the Minister for Law and Justice Brijesh Kumar Gupta returns to the capital, Law Ministry said. Gupta is scheduled to return to the capital today afternoon.

The 12th amendment is inevitable to resolve the thorniest issues in the new constitution and later to endorse them at the CA’s full house meeting which has been called on April 23 for voting on the unresolved issues.

According to the parliamentary Business Advisory Committee (BAC) voting would be organised if in case the political parties fail to reach to an understanding over the unresolved issues within the extended deadline through CC, which is actually mandated to prepare the first draft of the new constitution.

BAC on Wednesday had extended the deadline of the Constitutional Committee (CC) to April 22 upon the recommendation of the CC after it failed to forge consensus on the key contentious issues of the new statute by April 17.