The government has brought a bill to make sure that suspended Chief Justice (CJ) Cholendra Shumsher Rana does not get to fulfill his wish of returning for duty even for just one day.
The bill registered in the House by the government to make amendments in a way that may extend the term of current House of Representatives (HoR) until March 5, 2023 will end all the doors for Rana's return to the SC.
The bill mentions that counting of the term should start from the day the first HoR meeting is held. The first meeting of the current HoR was held on March 5, 2018. The bill also has another provision that states that the term of the current HoR will expire automatically when the first meeting of the next HoR is held.
There was confusion about whether the House of Representatives (HoR) will remain after the announcement of general election. Rana, who is set to retire on December 13, wishes to return for duty even if for just one day capitalizing on the legal confusion about end of HoR term arguing that the impeachment motion lodged in the current HoR automatically becomes obsolete once the HoR's term ends on the day of filing nominations on October 9. The HoR election will be held on November 20.
But the new bill registered by the government if passed will extend the term until the first meeting of the next HoR which will be determined by President once the Election Commission submits final results of the HoR election including both first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR) electoral systems.
It takes more than 10 days for counting FPTP votes while the Election Commission counts PR votes after that. The Election Commission then invites parties to send name of the candidates from the closed list prepared before the election on the basis of the PR votes secured by the respective parties giving a deadline of seven days.
The Election Commission distributes certificates to those elected through PR system after that and then submits the final results to the president. The president then calls the first meeting of new HoR giving a few days.
This all in this way will take more than the 24-day gap between the election on November 20 and Rana's retirement on December 13 thereby ending all hopes of Rana to return for duty even for just one day.
The last federal and parliamentary HoR election was held in two stages on November 26 and December 7, 2017 but the first meeting of HoR was held only on March 5, 2018.
