A/HRC/7/3/Add.2 page 85 the draft torture bill and the Government has declined to give OHCHR a copy, on the grounds that it is not yet public. 426. The Government informed that the House of Representatives promulgated an Interim Constitution on 15 January 2007. The new Constitution prohibits subjecting people to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Pursuant to this prohibition, a new bill against torture is currently under inter-ministerial consultations. There will be consultations with different stakeholders and inputs will be sought from them in order to enrich e draft and incorporate their views. It defines torture in accordance with the spirit of the Convention and explicitly makes any form of torture and ill-treatment by public officials as a criminal offence punishable under the law. Under the new bill, the offender shall be punished for up to 5 years of imprisonment or fine or both depending upon the gravity of the offence. 427. Recommendation (c) stated: Incommunicado detention be made illegal, and persons held incommunicado released without delay; 428. According to non-governmental sources, article 24(2) and (3) of the Interim Constitution, adopted in January 2007, provides immediate access to legal counsel, and also that all detainees must be presented before a judge within 24 hours of arrest. However, in practice many detainees do not have immediately access to lawyers, and the 24-hour period for presentation before a judge is often not respected. While the systematic practice of holding political detainees incommunicado ended since the April 2006 ceasefire, in 2007 OHCHR documented several cases of detainees accused of belonging to armed groups being held for short periods in unacknowledged, incommunicado detention, in the worst case for eleven days. 429. The Government informed that incommunicado detention is illegal in Nepal. Hence, the Government of Nepal never allows incommunicado detention under any circumstances. The Interim Constitution of Nepal and other domestic laws prohibit incommunicado detention. The law enforcement authorities are under the strict legal obligation to produce any arrested person before the competent authority. Currently there is no detainee kept incommunicado in the country. 430. Recommendation (d) stated: Those legally arrested should not be held in facilities under the control of their interrogators or investigators for more than the time required by law to obtain a judicial warrant of pre-trial detention, which should not exceed 48 hours. After this period they should be transferred to a pretrial facility under a different authority, where no further unsupervised contact with the interrogators or investigators should be permitted; 431. According to non-governmental sources, the Interim Constitution on 15 January 2007 contained a broader range of clauses protecting human rights than the 1990 Constitution, including more expansive due process rights such as the right to legal assistance upon arrest. As indicated above, article 24(3) requires that detainees are taken before a judicial authority within 24 hours. However, there are significant shortcomings in the Interim Constitution including with respect to the rights of non-