Kathmandu: Hearing on writ petitions filed against President Bidya Devi Bhandari for not certifying the Citizenship Amendment Bill couldn’t take place on Friday.
A single bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma was scheduled to hear the writs. However, the hearing couldn’t take place citing a lack of time. Now the petitions have been moved to Sunday’s cause list.
A total of five writ petitions were registered against the President at the apex court on Thursday.
Legal practitioners, law students, and the general public have filed the writs arguing that the President breached the constitution and parliamentary supremacy by rejecting the bill although it was mandatory for her to authenticate the bill as per the constitutional provision.
President Bhandari on Tuesday refused to endorse the Bill to amend the Nepal Citizenship Act, 2063 BS which was endorsed twice by both the House of Representatives and the National Assembly within the stipulated time.
The 15-day timeline given to the President by the Constitution for certification expired at midnight on Tuesday.
Article 113 (4) of the Nepal Constitution has enshrined a provision that the President should compulsorily certify the bill when it was sent to the President twice for authentication.
Earlier, both the Houses of the Federal Parliament had sent the bill to the President for certification on August 1 for the first time. The President had sent back the bill to the parliament with an eight-point message noting it required reconsideration from the parliament as per the constitution.
Then, both the Houses of parliament endorsed the bill a second time without making any changes.
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