KATHMANDU: The Parliament meeting, which was scheduled to discuss three bills related to judiciary today, could not proceed with its business owing to lack of quorum.

The Parliament Regulations require that at least one fourth (149) of total lawmakers should have attended the meeting in order to continue any discussion at the House.

The Parliament meeting had begun at 11 am today and lawmakers of various parties had expressed their opinions about various contemporary issues during the zero hour.

But, after Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Ajaya Shankar Nayak tabled the bills for discussion, Nepal Workers and Peasants Party lawmaker Dilli Prasad Kafle demanded that the number of lawmakers be counted.

Then, Speaker Onsari Gharti Magar, who was chairing the meeting, ordered the Parliament Secretariat staff to count the number. They did and found that only 126 lawmakers were present in the meeting.

Gharti, consequently, announced that the agenda set for today was dropped and the next meeting shall take place at 11 am on Sunday.

Earlier, the Parliament unconsciously had unanimously endorsed the International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonisation of Customs Procedures 1974.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Krishna Bahadur Mahara had proposed that the House endorse the Convention in order to make custom duties uniform and transparent.

The Banking Offense and Punishment First Amendment Bill was also endorsed by the meeting today.