in the written response submitted by the Election Commission. the citizenship are citizens of Nepal as provided by the Article 8 of the Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2007, however; the provision of that Article does not mean that none has to obtain citizenship certificate hereinafter. Such a narrow interpretation should not be made. The citizenship certificate is the proof of the fact that a person is a citizen. Therefore, the person who intends to exercise political and civil rights has to obtain citizenship certificate. If a person is genuinely a citizen and is conscious about his/her civil and political rights, there can be no justification for being indifference toward obtaining citizenship certificate. The age for obtaining citizenship certificate has been fixed as 16 years however, the age for exercising voting right has been designated at 18 years. From this context, it is an inherent objective that only after obtaining the citizenship certificate; one can exercise the political rights such as to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections. If there was extreme complication in obtaining citizenship certificate or there was discrimination in its distribution, it would be a cause of the problem. However, there is no such state of affairs in Nepal. The State is distributing citizenship certificates by outreaching to the people’s doors. While making petition to have any law or any part thereof declared void on the ground of inconsistency with this Constitution pursuant to Article 107(1), the petitioner has to make petition clearly specifying the reason how the impugned law is inconsistent with the constitution supplying evidence of such inconsistency for the satisfaction of the court. The burden of proof lies with the party who makes the claim of inconsistency of any law with the constitution. In this writ petition, the petitioner has claimed that the provisions of Sections 11 (2), (3) and 25 (A) and (B) Electoral Rolls Act, 2006 are inconsistent with the constitution however, he has failed to submit evidence substantiating that claim. Therefore, there exists no condition for issuance of the writ. If only the name of the people who have obtained Nepali Citizenship certificate is registered in the Electoral Rolls and the names of the people who have not obtained the citizenship certificate but are qualified for obtaining citizenship certificate pursuant to part 2 of the constitution and Citizenship Act, 2006 is not included in the Electoral Rolls, such an act goes against the right to equality guaranteed by the Article 13 of the constitution. Therefore, the writ petition should be quashed. It is stated in the written response submitted by the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. In the absence of a citizen’s relationship with the concerned nation, no political or civil rights of a person may emanate. Hence, documents such as those issued from the school cannot be a substituted of the citizenship certificates. If the citizenship could be substantiated from the documents like land ownership certificate, there would be no relevancy of a separate legal provision for issuing the citizenship certificate. The citizenship certificate is the only substitute to a citizenship certificate. The provision of Article 8 of the Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2007 cannot be construed as having allowed a person to vote and to stand as a candidate without having acquired a citizenship certificate. Article 65 of the Constitution and Section 5 of the Electoral Rolls Act, 2006 both require the Nepali citizenship in their respective contexts. At this premise, the legal provision that does not require citizenship certificate for registering name in the electoral rolls is unconstitutional in itself. The Provisions of Section 11(1), (2), (3) and Section 25 of the Electoral Rolls Act do not make the non citizens of Nepal a voter. Section 5 of the same Act has made clear what types of person can become voters. Therefore, the claim that it has been tried to make non-citizens as voter does not seem reasonable. The writ petition should be quashed. It is stated in the written response submitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs. This writ petition presented before the bench as per the rule for hearing of whether or not the interim order should be quashed, the writ deserves full hearing since the written responses have already been submitted from all the respondents. The summary of the arguments made by the learned Senior Advocates Mr. Sindhu Nath Pakuryal, Bishwo Kanta Mainali, Shambhu Thapa and learned advocates Sher Bahadur K.C, Borna Bahadur Karki, Dr. Mr. Bhimarjun Acharya, Mr. Tika Ram Bhattarai, Mr. Chandra Kanta Gyawali, Mr. Madhav Kumar Basnet, Mr. Ravi Narayan Khanal, Mr. Rishi Ram Ghimire, Mr. Tulsi Bhatta, Mr. Tara Prasad Lamichhane, Mr. Padam Rokka, Mr. Dinesh Raj Satyal and Mr. Subash Acharya representing the writ petitioner is as follows: The law has conferred the right to District Administration Office for issuing citizenship certificate after due verification of whether the applicant is a citizen or not. Any other legal provision that would confirm someone as a Nepali citizen is paradoxical in itself and it is also evident that this has been brought to inactivate the existing legal provisions. As such, the other provisions excluding citizenship certificate in Section 11(1), (2), (3) of Electoral Rolls Act, 2006 have to be declared unconstitutional. The Constitution has not provided immunity to the Election Commission against judicial review of its acts. Even the Commission has Although both the persons who have acquired the citizenship of Nepal and who are eligible to acquire 32 Compilation of Selected Decisions of Supreme Court on CITIZENSHIP and BIRTH REGISTRATION

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