KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court (SC) has issued an order in the name of the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to submit the reasons for the lack of uniformity in the fees when making official authorizations from Nepali embassies in various countries.

The Supreme Court has given this order in a writ petition filed by advocate Deepakraj Joshi demanding uniformity in the fees of authorization of successors or relatives. Advocate Joshi claimed that the fees charged by missions abroad are arbitrary and because of this, Nepalis are in trouble.

The Nepali Embassy in Australia takes 300 Australian dollars, and the Embassy in Denmark takes 1600 kroner.

In the writ petition, there is a demand to maintain uniformity in the fees saying that the Embassy in Qatar charges 365 riyals, and the consulate office in America charges 200 US dollars for the same document.

The writ petition argued that the Indian embassy in the USA charges only 20 dollars and the American embassy in Nepal charges less than 50 dollars after verifying all the documents, however, the Nepali Embassies charged more.

In section 153(4) of the Civil Procedure Code Act, 2074, there is a provision that 500 will be charged for persons within three generations and 5000 for others.

It is claimed in the writ petition that the foreign embassies have charged expensive fees in violation of the law of Nepal.

The petitioner has demanded an instant decision that it should be stopped immediately and abolished in the long term as it is the work of collecting high fees from the missions under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.