Kathmandu, Sept 23: A meeting today of the Parliamentary Hearing Committee, the Federal Parliament, remained undecided over the nomination of Ram Krishna Bhattarai as ambassador to Sri Lanka.
The meeting ended inconclusively after it faced the lack of a quorum to decide on the nomination. In today’s meeting, only eight members, out of 15, were present.
Committee member Shyam Kumar Ghimire said the presence of two-thirds of members or at least 10 is required to decide on the proposal to appoint Ghimire as the ambassador to Sri Lanka.
Earlier, the Committee demanded the certificate of Bachelor’s degree of the nominee to prove him academically eligible for the appointment. But, it has not yet received the document. It is said the certificate is not available at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well.
The Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, tomorrow. As Ghimire said, the government’s recommendation to appoint Bhattarai as the ambassador will not be accepted if he fails to submit the document by Tuesday.
As per the directives regarding the appointment of an ambassador, at least the completion of the Bachelor’s degree is required to be academically eligible for the appointment. The names of 16 people who were proposed as ambassadors for various countries along with Bhattarai have been already endorsed by the Committee.
