A bill under consideration of the House becomes ineffective only when the House is dissolved. There is no other situation where a bill can become ineffective.Â
KATHMANDU, JULY 14
Opposition parties' lawmakers assailed the government for not moving the process of passing the anti-usury ordinance replacement bill.
Rastriya Swatantra Party Chair Rabi Lamichhane accused the government of not according high priority to passing of the anti-usury bill.
Similarly, CPN-UML lawmaker Raghuji Panta said the government had blamed his party for non-passage of the anti-usury ordinance bill on July 5, leading to the anti-usury ordinance becoming ipso facto ineffective the same day, but now when there was no obstruction in the House, the government did not bring the same bill.
On the day the HoR was supposed to pass the anti-usury bill, which had already been passed by the National Assembly, the CPN- UML and other opposition parties stalled House proceedings over Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's remarks related to Indian national Pritam Singh's effort to make him the PM at least once.
Speaking at the House of Representatives today, Lamichhane said the government had spread rumour that opposition parties were against the anti-usury ordinance, but now the government itself was not giving priority to the bill.
"I would like to know why the anti-usury ordinance replacement bill was not listed for discussion in the House business schedule today,"
Lamichhane said. He added that he was in favour of the anti-usury bill and he was with the victims of usury in their fight against unscrupulous money lenders.
Stating that the victims of loan sharks were living a miserable life, Lamichhane said if the anti-usury bill was not listed for discussion in the next House meeting, his party lawmakers would stall House proceedings.
He said his party wanted to stall House proceedings over anti-usury bill by informing the House in advance as it did not want to disturb other agenda that were listed for discussion today.
"But if silence is maintained over the anti-usury bill, we cannot allow House proceedings to go on. We cannot tolerate anything that would prolong the sufferings of usury victims who are forced to pay exorbitant interest on their loan," the RSP Chair added.
He, however, said that his party was not against genuine money lenders who had been assisting people in local areas by disbursing loan on genuine conditions. "We are against only those people who are laying the debt-trap," he added.
Lamichhane urged the House to pass the anti-usury bill through a fast-track process.
As the anti-usury ordinance ipso facto became ineffective after 60 days, some people argue that the anti-usury ordinance replacement bill also became ineffective.
But two government sources said that neither the constitution nor the House regulation allowed such a bill to become ineffective.
"A bill under consideration of the House of Representatives becomes ineffective only when the House is dissolved.
There is no other situation where a bill can become ineffective," a ministry source said.
The source said the government wanted to move the current bill ahead but it also wanted to take all the stakeholders on board in the process.
When the government registered the bill in the Parliament, it expected the bill to pass within the stipulated time frame, but that did not happen and the anti-usury ordinance ipso facto became ineffective, the source added. He said in criminal justice system continuity of legal provisions matter much. "Now since there is a legal vacuum, those people who had been arrested under the ordinance should be freed and this is not good for the rule of law," the source added. He said it was an old problem with Nepal's legislation process that things did not move ahead in the expected line and manner.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 15, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
