“It is a matter of regret that the issue has been politicized in Nepal and confidential communication from the Embassy has been publicized,” a statement from the Indian embassy in Kathmandu said. [break]
The Indian statement comes two days after the government revoked its March 19 decision to award the MRP contract to the southern neighbor, in the face of protests from the main opposition party UCPN-M and the Public Accounts Committee of parliament.
Nepal had signed an agreement with India on March 23 on printing the machine readable passports. India said work as per the agreement had already been initiated before the contract was revoked.
Indian concern over "leak" of diplomatic communications refers to a letter written by Indian ambassador Rakesh Sood to Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala on December 4, 2009.
In the letter, Sood had raised Indian security concerns and defended India´s interest in printing the MRPs.
The ambassador had said, "India and Nepal share an open border regime under which Nepali citizens do not require a visa to travel to India and vice versa. In recent times, the open border has also been a source of certain security concerns which have been shared with the Nepali leaders at the highest level," Sood wrote in the letter.
He had added that printing the MRPs in India would address some of the security concerns.
Meanwhile, the Indian ambassador called on Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal at the latter´s residence at Baluwatar. It is not known what transpired at the meeting held after the revoking of the MRP contract to India.
SC extends stay order
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday extended for the next two weeks its interim order against the government´s previous decision to award the Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) contract to India.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha and Justice Prem Sharma on Tuesday asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to furnish information on progress in implementation of the government´s decision to scrap the MRP deal with India.
"We hereby order MoFA to let the SC know about progress in implementing the government´s recent decision to scrap the deal," reads the order, adding, "The court will decide the case after receiving a written document regarding implementation progress."
The division bench further said that its interim order issued last Wednesday will be in effect till April 26.
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