The Supreme Court has issued a ‘show cause’ notice to the government for allocating Rs 60 million to directly elected lawmakers.
The constitutional bench of the Supreme Court—comprising Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana and judges Deepak Kumar Karki, Hari Krishna Karki, Kedar Prasad Chalise and Mira Khadka—on Friday asked the Prime Minister’s Office, the Finance Ministry, the House of Representatives and the National Assembly to clarify—within a week—the reasons behind the allocation of the fund to lawmakers.
On May 29, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada, while presenting the budget for the fiscal year 2019-20, had allocated Rs 60 million each for lawmakers.
Despite widespread criticism, the finance minister buckled under political pressure to allocate the amount. Lawmakers had demanded Rs 10 million each for the constituency development fund. Last year too, despite promises to not allocate funds, Khatiwada had allocated 40 million each to lawmakers.
The move has been criticised by many who say such funds lack oversight and that this could give rise to corruption.
Advocate Parasmani Bhattarai had filed a writ petition at the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court on June 2 claiming that distributing budget to lawmakers was against the constitution.
Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade.
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