Bill to amend T&R Act registered in parliament

Kathmandu, Mar. 10: The government has registered the bill to amend the Act on Commission on Investigation of Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation, 2014 in the Federal Parliament Secretariate on Thursday.

Earlier, the government had decided to register the bill in the House of Representatives. A meeting of the Council of Ministers held on Thursday morning took the decision to this effect, according to Minister for Communication and Information Technology Rekha Sharma. 

The amended bill will be tabled at the House on Thursday, Minister Sharma, who is also the government spokesperson, said after the meeting.

On May 11, 2014, this Act was introduced to create two Commissions - the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission on Investigation of Disappeared Persons. As per the Act, these two Commissions were formed on February 10, 2015.

In the previous term of the parliament, this bill was tabled for debate in the parliament but could not be passed. In the bill registered in the House of Representatives on July 15, 2022 by the then Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Govinda Prasad Sharma (Koirala), it is mentioned that the decision of the three-member special court to be formed to hear conflict-time cases would be final. 

CPN-UML, conflict victims, and National Human Rights Commission opposed this decision. 

Therefore, the bill, which has been debated in the parliament, was again sent back to the parliamentary committee. Since then, the bill has been in limbo.

The Cabinet meeting held today also decided to send the issue of determining the maximum limit of pesticide residue in food items to the relevant committee of the Cabinet for further discussion.

Although the proposal related to the testing of pesticides was submitted to the Council of Ministers on August 31, 2022 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development for publication in the Nepal Gazette and was sent to the Cabinet’s Economic and Infrastructure Committee on September 6 for discussion, the process could not move further after that.

After the elections of the House of Representatives and the Provincial Assembly on November 20, 2022, after the formation of the new government, the proposal was also withdrawn in accordance with the practice of automatically withdrawing the decisions of the old Cabinet. 

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ had instructed to bring a new proposal regarding pesticides immediately. After receiving the new proposal, the Cabinet meeting held on Thursday morning decided to send the proposal to the Economic and Infrastructure Committee for further discussion. After discussion in the committee, the proposal will be presented in the Cabinet meeting for endorsement, said Minister Sharma.