KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 23

Five writ petitions have been filed at the Supreme Court against President Bidhya Devi Bhandari's decision to pocket veto the citizenship bill.

Advocates Sunil Ranjan Singh and Sagar Baral are among the petitioners who have filed petitions at the apex court demanding a directive against the president to obligate her to authenticate the bill, according to SC Spokesperson Bimal Paudel. The first hearing in the case will be held tomorrow.

President Bhandari, who had sent the bill to the House of Representatives for reconsideration on August 14, refused to sign it after the Parliament passed the bill as it is and resent it to her for her approval.

In accordance with Article 111 (3) of the constitution, the president can use suspension veto sending the bill to the House of origin with her objection, but Article 113 (4) requires the president to authenticate any bill sent for a second time after being passed by both Houses of Parliament with or without any changes.

Advocates Singh and Sarita Thapa have stated in their writ petition that the president's refusal to sign the bill was an insult against the Parliament, which had elected her to the high office.

They have argued that her actions were a violation of the constitution. They said the constitution stipulated that the president should abide by and protect the constitution, but in her case, the president did not abide by and protect the constitution.

Singh and Thapa urged the court to invalidate her decision not to authenticate the citizenship bill.

Singh and Thapa stated in their petition that the president violated Articles 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16(1), 18 (1), 66 (1), 111, and 113 (4) of the constitution.

They have urged the court to list the case for priority and continuous hearing.

They said the president's action deprived lakhs of eligible citizens of their right to obtain citizenship and was a violation of the rule of law. The 15-day constitutional deadline for the presidential assent to the bill ended on Tuesday midnight.

President Bhandari's advisers say the president, being the protector of the constitution, had the obligation to ensure that the constitutional provisions were not violated in the bill. They say the citizenship bill did not respect some of the constitutional provisions, including the right to live with dignity and the right to privacy, particularly that of single mothers.

They said the bill did not ensure provincial identity on the citizenship card nor did it respect women's right to lineage without any gender discrimination.

The government says that the president's concerns will be addressed in the citizenship regulations to be framed later. Ruling parties' leaders had said that the president endorsed the citizenship ordinance brought by the KP Sharma Oli government last year, but when the Sher Bahadur Deuba--led government brought the new citizenship bill incorporating almost the same provisions contained in the citizenship ordinance, the president refused to sign it.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 23, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.