KATHMANDU: Today’s meeting of the Constitutional Committee (CC) was adjourned after Constituent Assembly members of the Unified CPN-Maoist objected to CC chairman Nilambar Acharya’s act of leaking contentious agenda of the constitution to the media.

The CC had identified at least 16 conflicting issues which needed to be sorted out if the new constitution were to be adopted by May 28, the deadline set by the Interim Constitution.

Vice-chairman of the UCPN-Maoist and CC member Narayankaji Shrestha objected to Acharya’s move of distributing copies of the agenda to CC members for consideration.

The meeting was deferred till tomorrow.

The meeting today was supposed to discuss the 16 contentious issues, including forms of governance, structure and number of federal units, election system, structure of federal parliament and provinces, principle of constitutionalism, pluralism and separation of powers among the executive, judiciary and legislature.

“Why did you circulate these agenda to the media as if they had been already agreed upon,” Shrestha questioned.

Sarita Giri, a CA member of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi) also objected to the jurisdiction of the 15-member panel formed under the coordination of UML CA member Agni Kharel.

The panel was formed to study the contentious issues of all thematic committees.

The CC was to discuss the structure of the constitutional bodies. The Committee on the Structure of Constitutional Bodies has recommended 11 bodies to be incorporated in the new constitution.