King Birendra has decided to seek the Supreme Court's advice on what he should do with a controversial bill that was approved by parliament in late July amidst an opposition walkout (NT #3). The king wants the apex court to decide if the Bill in question, approved 26 July last year, is a finance bill. His move comes after a series of meetings he held with leaders from various political parties.

The Nepal Citizenship Act (1963) Amendment (1999/00) was discussed first in the State Affairs Committee of parliament before the Lower House passed it and sent it to the Upper House. The Upper House returned the Bill without even discussing it due to oppositioin from the king's nominees and the Marxist-Leninist members (the Nepali Congress does not have a majority here). Since the speaker of the Lower Houser had ruled that it was a finance bill, Nepali Congress rammed it through again and sent it to the king for approval.

The Constitution requires the king to approve a finance bill when it is submitted to him. In other cases the monarch can return a bill to parliament if he believes it needs further discussion. This bill was likely to have been challenged in court, even if the king had approved it.

Opponents to the bill say it does not have adequate safeguards to prevent foreigners (read: Indians) from obtaining citizenship certificates. Supporters of the bill don't agree, saying that not just are there adequate safeguards but it even has tougher strictures for officials who become party to fraud and misrepresentation.

What makes the bill important is that it would pave the way for granting certificates to about 4 million citizens without proper papers. A majority of those without papers are people from tarai districts. All political parties want the four-decade-old issue resolved but at the same time don\'t want any single party to walk away with the credit. The new bill has a clause that would grant citizenship to people even if their fathers had not obtained papers as required by the Constitution of 1962.