Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari denied authenticating the citizenship Bill despite the constitutionally bounded provision to ratify it within 15 days after it has been re-approved by both houses.
President’s political advisor Lalbabu Yadav confirmed that Bhandari has refused to authenticate the bill “in order to safeguard the constitution.” “It is stated in Article 61(4) that the main duty of the president shall be to abide by and protect the Constitution. This means protecting all articles of the Constitution. One cannot say by only looking at Article 113 that the president did not fulfil her constitutional responsibility,” Yadav claimed.
However, Article 113(2) of the Constitution which bears the provisions about the authentication of bills states, “The Bill presented to the President for certification according to this Article, shall be certified within 15 days, and both the Houses shall be informed about that as early as possible.”
As per the provision, the president is constitutionally bounded to authenticate any bill that is resubmitted by the House after sending it back to the House for reconsideration once. Tuesday past midnight was the deadline for the president to authenticate the bill which has been missed, leading the nation into a situation of a constitutional crisis.