Apex Court orders to the government for full shape of the CA

KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court today has ordered to the government authorities to appoint in the vacant 26 lawmakers of Constituent Assembly within 15 days.
The verdict comes at a time when parties are wrangling over the nomination with the major parties informally discussing sharing the Cabinet nominated quota to be divided among them.  However the 601-member CA is yet to get 26 members, to be nominated by the Cabinet, to acquire a full shape even after almost six months since the CA elections.

Duo Justices Ram Kumar Prasad Shah and Kalyan Shrestha, a division bench has issued the order to authorities — the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, the Ministry of  Law, Justice and Constituent Assembly and the CA Secretariat — not to delay the appointment process.

Observing that all the activities performed by the CA without getting full shape could be unconstitutional, the bench stated that the authorities should not delay the process of nominating the 26 members as envisioned by Article 63(3)(C) of the Interim Constitution.
The bench has also directed the authorities to take a prompt decision and nominate 26 members objectively and honestly and make sure that proper reasoning is given while nominating the individuals.

The bench has also asked the authorities not to indulge in power sharing while nominating the CA members because ‘the move is related to constitution drafting and lack of expertise could hamper the whole processes. “The members selected under nominated category have a special and significant duty of working as experts,” it observed.

The apex court has directed the authorities not to nominate the members from
among those who were rejected in both the election systems — first-past-the-post
or proportional representation — and asked them to choose individuals from among those who could not be represented in the CA and those who have made outstanding contribution to country.

The apex court passed the order today in response to a writ petition filed by lawmaker and Dalit Janajati Party Chairman Bishendra Paswan, on January 8. Earlier in the writ, paswan had requested for not selecting the mainstream politicians. RSS