Kathmandu, September 6

The Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee has begun the process of hearing for two ambassadorial nominees Dip Kumar Upadhyay and Lilamani Paudel.

The government has nominated Upadhyay and Paudel as Nepal’s ambassador to India and China respectively.

The PHSC today decided to publish a notice giving 10 days’ for the public to lodge complaints against the two nominees, if any, said PHSC Chair Kul Bahadur Gurung. PHSC Secretary Dhruba Prasad Ghimire said the 10 days’ period would start from tomorrow.

Though the government wants Upadhyay to be appointed as Nepal’s Ambassador to India before PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s India visit, it is unlikely as the PM is scheduled to embark on his India visit on September 15.

PHSC members Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, a CPN-UML lawmaker, and Shayandra Bantawa, a RPP-N lawmaker, spoke against the nominations, according to Ghimire.

Dhakal, told THT that he opposed the nominations for ambassadors as the new government nominated Upadhyay, who had already been recalled by the KP Sharma Oli-led government which also had CPN-MC as a coalition partner.

Dhakal said hearing for both the nominees would be against the constitution and parliamentary norms as the government recommended their names when the Supreme Court had stayed the government’s decision, acting on petitions filed by some nominees for ambassadors whose names were withdrawn by the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government.

The court’s order, however, was applicable to the cases of those who had filed the writ petition. The Oli-led government had recalled Upadhyay for allegedly not supporting it, a charge Upadhyay denied.