Parliamentary hearing of the persons recommended by the government as ambassadors for India, America and Britain has not been possible for over a month due to apathy of the ruling parties.
The Cabinet on October 28 had recommended Shankar Sharma for India, Sridhar Khatri for America and Gyan Chandra Acharya for Britain. It had then written the next day to the Parliamentary Hearing Committee which started the hearing process on December 2 and published a notice in the Gorkhapatra the next day inviting complaint against the rcommendees.
The committee then issued a notice to hold discussion with the complainants on November 21 but seven lawmakers did not attend the meeting that day.
The 15-strong committee now has only 12 members. Two seats are vacant after two members—Gyanendra Bahadur Karki and Rajendra Shrestha—became ministers while the seat that became vacant after Parbat Gurung of CPN-UML became minister in the last government has also yet to be filled.
The committee currently has four members from CPN (Maoist Center) and three from CPN-UML, the largest party in the House. UML wants its lawmakers to be inducted in the committee but Nepali Congress (NC) has not paid any attention to filling the vacancies.
The regulation about operating joint meeting of the federal parliament requires attendance of 51 percent of members for meeting of the Parliamentary Hearing Committee. The ruling parties including NC, Maoist Center, CPN (Unified Socialist) and Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) currently have the necessary number of lawmakers (eight).
The committee's meeting can be held if Chairman Laxman Lal Karna of Loktantrik Samajwadi Party were to operate the meeting and members from the ruling parties were to attend.
Parliamentary committees are generally constituted in such a way that the ruling parties have a majority to ensure that the bills brought by the government and the recommendees are endorsed by the committees. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the ruling parties to ensure that there is quorum.
But hearing of the envoys recommended by the government has not moved forward due to absence of members from the ruling coalition with the parties currently busy in general convention and other conventions recently.
The committee on November 21 had called the next meeting for today (December 3) but it has postponed the meeting to December 6 deeming that it will again fail to reach quorum today.
The government has already called House session on December 14. "There may now be quorum as the House session has also been called. It may be easier to hold meeting," Secretary at the Federal Parliament Secretariat Dhruva Prasad Ghimire told Setopati.
The appointment process of the recommendees will move forward if the hearing process is not completed by December 12 as the regulation mentions that there will be no obstruction in appointment if hearing is not completed within 45 days of making recommendations.
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