KATHMANDU: Parliamentarians have demanded earliest revision of the Citizenship Act (Amendment) Bill.
At a discussion programme organized today by the Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee under the House of Representatives and Women, Law and Development Forum, parliamentarian Min Bahadur Bishwakarma shared that preparation was underway to take forward the Citizenship Act (Amendment) Bill as soon as the budget for forthcoming fiscal year 2022/23 is passed.
He viewed that amendment should be considered in the Bill taking into account the situation in Nepal that birth registration certificate was asked for admission in school for five-year-old children, marriage certificate was asked for registering the birth of child and citizenship identity was asked for registering the marriage.
Similarly, Bhanubhakta Dhakal said that citizenship should be distributed in a way that it does not harm the State’s vital interests since, he argued, that citizenship related issues were sensitive.
Dev Prasad Gurung shared that seven years’ term was fixed after discussing in the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee on the issues of how long to keep in case of naturalized citizenship in marriage.
Laxman Lal Karna viewed that the top political leadership should forge a consensus on the Bill to take endorse it.
Samina Hussain opined that the parliament and the government should take responsibility of those who committed suicide without getting citizenship identity card since the Bill has been stuck in the parliament for years.
Bimala Bishwokarma argued that although the issue relating to citizenship was clear in constitution, consensus on the same could not be forged among the political leaders thereby no tangible progress was made towards this.
Committee President Krishna Bhakta Pokharel said that if the top political leadership agreed on the Bill, it would be endorsed by the parliament in a day. He urged the parliamentarians to create enabling environment for the same.
Forum’s executive director advocate Sabin Shrestha said that the conflicting laws to be amended within a year as per the Article 304 of the Constitution could not be implemented when it came to the Citizenship Act. RSS
