Kathmandu, May 23

The government failed to implement a key provision of the nine-point agreement reached between the CPN-Maoist Centre and the CPN-UML on May 5.

Point 3 of the agreement states that the process of amending laws to complete the works of the peace process in the spirit of the comprehensive peace accord will be initiated within 15 days.

Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Agni Prasad Kharel said the government was preparing to table an amendment on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, but it had not completed consultations for the same yet.

Pramod Dahal, press adviser to the prime minister said point 3 of the pact was not implemented mainly because of lack of time.

“The government is busy with the budgetary process and the CPN-Maoist Centre leaders were also busy with their unity efforts,” he said and added that the government would hold discussion with CPN-Maoist centre leaders soon and try to implement the deal after the budget was endorsed by the Parliament.

CPN-Maoist Centre leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha said he was worried about non-implementation of the nine-point deal. “I have told our party chairman to talk to the government about the non-implementation of the nine-point agreement,” he said.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Dilli Raj Ghimire said any bill intending to amend the TRC Act should be prepared by the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction and should then be sent to the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.

“We will give the go-ahead to the bill once we have the chance to read it, but in this case, we have received nothing from the line ministry,” Ghimire added.

Information Officer of Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction Prakash Acharya said his ministry had not received any formal letter from the Prime Minister’s Office requesting the ministry to prepare a draft of any such bill.

“Whatever we heard about the nine-point deal was through the media. We have not received any official communication from the Prime Minister’s Office.

We do not know whether there was a deal between the two parties or a deal between a political party and the government,” he added.

Human rights lawyer Govinda Bandi said any effort to give power to the transitional mechanism other than fact-finding powers would render the transitional mechanism a failure.

CPN-M Centre leaders have been saying that regular courts should not deal with conflict era cases.