Kathmandu, December 6

A sub-committee of the Legislation Committee of the Parliament today submitted its report on civil code bill to the panel’s Chair Ganga Satguaunwa, recommending will system, among other things.

Sub-committee Coordinator Radhe Shyam Adhikari who submitted the report to the panel Chair told THT that the bill was expected to be passed in the Parliament by mid-January.

Adhikari said the report recommended introducing will system in the country 18 years after the commencement of this law. “We decided to introduce will system after 18 years mainly because we do not want to change property law for those who are born before this law is enforced,” Adhikari said and added that 18 years period was recommended because people born after the commencement of this law would mentally prepare themselves to be self reliant and not depend on parental property.

The original bill had suggested enforcing will system after 10 years.

According to Adhikari, the report also recommended that households employing domestic servants would shoulder certain responsibilities towards their servants. “We have said in the report that households cannot employ anyone as a domestic help up to certain age and when they employ domestic helps fulfilling legal requirements, the households should fund domestic helps’ education and take care of their medical needs,” Adhikari said and added that they had suggested a number of things the households employing domestic help were supposed to do.

The sub-panel has also suggested that both husband and wife can file for divorce in the district courts. Under the current system a husband is required to file divorce case against his wife at village development committee and municipality office before going to the district court.

Adhikari said the sub-panel also suggested that the husband be made to pay money to wife as divorce settlement only if the husband’s fault becomes a reason for wife to seek divorce from him. Civil code bill has also, for the first time, introduced provisions relating to torts and private international law.

This report will now be debated in the legislation committee before a final report is submitted to the Parliament.