KATHMANDU: The second oath of office and secrecy taken by Vice President Paramananda Jha was not without a controversy either.

Taking the oath in Maithili and Nepali languages, Jha was activated in the country’s second highest post after five months of dormancy

following a Supreme

Court order.

“That he repeated his mistake shows he loves to be in a controversy,” advocate Balkrishna Neupane told The Himalayan Times. One-and-a-half years ago, Neupane had challenged the VP’s oath taken in Hindi, which the apex court annulled on July 23 last year.

“Jha spoke completely neither in Nepali nor in Maithili,” Neupane said. “The seventh amendment to the Constitution does not provision mixing languages during the oath. Additionally, he could not exercise the right given by the seventh amendment to choose an alternative language as it was made just for the new appointee.

Today, Jha took his oath in Maithili and Nepali simultaneously. When President Dr Ram Baran Yadav pronounced the text, Jha followed in Maithili and in Nepali subsequently.

Earlier, Article 36 (F) and (I) of the Constitution were amended, allowing the President and the Vice President to take an oath in their mother tongue.

Neupane said he was planning to move the apex court against the violation of the Constitution again. “He violated the spirit of the apex court ruling as well,” he opined.

Jha attended the function with the national code and tried to show that he respects the official language.