KATHMANDU, AUGUST 16

The ruling coalition today decided against making any changes to the Citizenship Act (Amendment) Bill that was sent by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari back to the House of Representatives for its reconsideration.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki told mediapersons that the alliance would move the citizenship bill ahead in the House immediately. He said the president used her constitutional power to return the bill and the constitution mandated her to give her assent to the bill resent by the Parliament after reconsideration. The Parliament has the power to pass the bill as it is.

While the CPN-UML welcomed the president's move, leaders of the ruling alliance opposed it, terming it politically motivated. Some lawyers said the president was supposed to act on the advice of Council of Ministers and she exceeded her brief when she decided to return the bill to the House of origin.

Chairperson of the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal Upendra Yadav, who is a ruling coalition partner, said the ruling alliance partners had reached consensus that the bill should be passed as it is. He said the Parliament would follow the fast-track process to pass the bill, the same way it had done when it passed the bill before sending it to the president. It was Parliament Secretariat Secretary Gopalnath Yogi who tabled the citizenship bill returned by the president in the HoR today and read out her message attached to the bill.

Assistant Spokesperson for the Parliament Secretariat Dasharath Dhamala said both Houses of the Parliament had the option of passing the bill through full House debate process or through parliamentary panel discussion. Dhamala said the House rules did not allow the House to give lawmakers 72 hours for registering amendment proposals as happened when bills were considered for the first time. 'This does not mean that lawmakers won't have opportunities to seek amendment to the bill. Lawmakers can voice their concerns during House debate. If the government accepts a lawmaker's proposal, the bill could be revised,' Dhamala added.

Earlier, both Houses passed the bill after debates in the House without sending the bill to relevant panels.

In May 2019, President Bhandari had returned passport bill to the HoR for reconsideration following which the HoR passed the bill in a day and the National Assembly passed it in three days.

A source at the Parliament Secretariat said the possibility of following the processes adopted during the repassage of passport bill was high. In 2019, the HoR sent the passport bill for the presidential assent without the National Assembly taking a call on the bill.

The HoR concluded that since the NA did not pass or reject the bill within 60 days, a mandatory provision, it had sent the bill to the president. However, while doing so the HoR counted the days when the Parliament was in recess following which the president decided to return the bill. At that time, many NA members expressed serious concerns about provisions of the bill.

Earlier today, UML Chief Whip Bishal Bhattarai welcomed the President's concerns on the bill and demanded that seven-year waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation be incorporated in the bill.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 17, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.