Kathmandu. Bijaya Nath Bhattarai has resigned as a member of the recommendation committee of The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).
The government has formed a recommendation committee under the coordination of Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel for the appointment of governor in the Rastra Bank. Bhattarai, a former governor of the same committee, was a member.
Bhattarai said he had informed Finance Minister Poudel that he had resigned from the committee. He said that even after a month of the formation of the committee, the meeting could not be held even once.
The government had removed the age limit by amending the procedure for appointment to public bodies. Since then, the Supreme Court has ordered not to implement the amendment.
Similarly, the ruling nepali Congress and THE UML had agreed to appoint Dr Gunakar Bhatta, executive director of the Rastra Bank, as the governor. Accordingly, it was reported in the media that Nc President Sher Bahadur Deuba had summoned Bhatta and asked him to appoint him as the governor.
Bhatta resigned from the post of Executive Director of The Rastra Bank. However, a writ petition has been filed in the Supreme Court stating that Bhatta will not be qualified to become governor. The writ has not been allowed to be seen for the third day today.
It is understood that Bhattarai resigned from the committee after the process of appointment of the governor became controversial and the recommendation committee did not discuss the appointment of the governor even once.
According to the Rastra Bank Act, the governor has to be appointed a month before the end of the governor’s term in the central bank. Maha Prasad Adhikari’s tenure as governor had ended on April 14. However, the government is yet to appoint a governor.
