KATHMANDU: In a serious turn of events, the Supreme Court (SC) today directed government authorities to hold back its decision to allow an Indian firm to print Machine Readable Passports.

A single bench of Justice Sushila Karki issued the stay order after an initial hearing. While the government has already missed the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) deadline of April 1 to introduce MRP, today’s SC ruling is likely to further delay the process.

The bench also directed the government authorities — Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala — and the printing company, Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India, to appear in court for a hearing to be conducted on Monday when the apex court will decide whether or not to continue the stay order.

Considering the serious nature of the issue, the bench also included the case in its priority list.

Saying that the government did not follow the due process as required by the Public Procurement Act, lawyers pleading on behalf of petitioners today demanded the apex court block the decision in the interest of the public.

Yesterday, two separate Public Interest Litigations (PILs) were filed in the SC challenging the agreement signed between the government and the Indian company to print the passports.

Pleading on behalf of the petitioners, senior advocate and former Attorney General of the former Maoist-led government Raghav Lal Vaidya, former Nepal Bar Association president Shambhu Thapa and advocate Purna Prasad Rajbanshi demanded the court intervene in the matter.

Advocate Hem Mani Subedi and a law student, Nara Bahadur KC, had filed the PILs demanding a court order to annul the government decision and to follow due procedures. The petitioner sought an apex court order to revive the cancelled bidding process.

Stating that the government had taken the decision due to a “commission game,” the petitioners said the court should direct the government authorities to take a fresh decision as the present decision would make the passports costlier when other companies were ready to print the same at a lower rate.

The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee had directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to go for a bidding process on February 27, while on February 13, it had directed the ministry to go for negotiations and had demanded an explanation on why it scrapped the bidding process.