KATHMANDU, JUNE 2

Senior advocates Surendra Bhandari and Bal Krishna Neupane today filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court demanding nullification of the Citizenship Bill that President Ramchandra Paudel signed into law on Wednesday.

The bill passed twice by the Parliament had been sent to then president Bidhya Devi Bhandari but she did not sign it ignoring the constitutional provision that mandated the president to sign a bill passed twice by the Parliament within 15 days.

They said President Paudel had stated that he signed the bill into law under Article 61 and 66, which, according to them, he could not do. They said the citizenship bill passed by the previous Parliament had died with the end of the tenure of the previous House of Representatives.

The Cabinet cannot give legitimacy to this bill and send it to the president for authentication, they argued. Stating that Article 113 (1) gave power only to the speaker and the National Assembly Chair to recommend authentication of the bill to the president, the petitioners said the Cabinet could not recommend the president to authenticate a bill. They said the constitution did not contain any provision whereby the acts of the previous president could be overturned by a new president. Article 113 cannot be invoked twice for the same bill. They said that Article 113 (4) set a deadline of 15 days for authentication of the bill and the president could not extend the 15-day deadline. Therefore, the act of authentication is malicious and arbitrary.

The petitioners sought a writ of mandamus to tell lawmakers to revise the citizenship bill after comprehensive discussion in the House. The petitioners also argued that the open border could be misused by foreigners who could try to obtain Nepali citizenship and render the original inhabitants of the country into a minority.

They demanded that a committee be formed to identify measures to resolve issues associated with the open border.

They also sought a waiting period of 10 years for marital naturalisation.

They also demanded a provision in the citizenship bill whereby if a Nepali citizen married to a foreign national could not obtain citizenship of her spouse's country, the same rule should apply to the citizen of that country who is married to a Nepal citizen. They argued that Article 11 (6) did not mean that foreign women marrying Nepali men should get naturalized citizenship immediately, but the Citizenship Act had incorporated provisions that did not conform to the constitutional provision.

The petitioners urged the court to stay the implementation of the citizenship bill that was signed into law by President Paudel. They also urged the court to order the government to make provisions for issuing citizenship through regular process, not through citizenship distribution teams.

They have demanded that citizenship certificates frequently obtained by foreigners be investigated.

The first hearing of the case has been scheduled for Sunday.

A version of this article appears in the print on June 3, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.