The disagreement was over whether or not assembly members are obliged to follow the party whip or follow their own conscience while voting on clauses in the new constitution, which is supposed to be ready by April 2010.

The deal, which will probably be ratified by the house plenary on Tuesday, will pave the way for the drafting process to start. However, another dispute over the composition of the Army Integration Special Committee to oversee PLA integration into the Nepal Army is still not resolved.

The rules of procedures was finalised after dropping the system of party whip on the CA members. "In another words, political parties can have their own provision regarding whip on its members," explained Radheshyam Adhikari.

He told nepalitimes.com political parties can now decide on their own the matters when they need to issue directives, or individual members would be allowed to exercise their own discretion. "The final draft will be table in the CA session to be ratified after which the writing of the constitution will start, hopefully this week," he said.

The draft committee had prepared the CA rules of procedure before Dasain but the NC, Maoists and UML were in favour of whip system while MJF and other smaller parties favoured allowing members to vote using their conscience on important matters during constitution writing.

Another committee to untangle the deadlock over integration was formed two weeks ago but the main opposition NC refused to join saying the decision was taken without consulting other parties. Vice President Paramananda Jha jumped into the fray questioning the legitimacy of the committee saying it had made an arbitrary decision on which were "major political parties" that could be members of the committee.

Finance Minister Baburam Bhattarai in parliament session on Saturday clarified that the representatives of other political parties would be inducted into the committee. The TMLP has been demanding dismissal of the committee and the NC is still refusing to join until previous commitments by the Maoists on disbanding the YCL and returning seized property are resolved first.

The NC on Sunday also submitted a nine-point memorandum to Prime Minister Dahal that details its demands: return of confiscated property, unanimity in major political decisions, persecution of accused murderer of Ramhari Shrestha and implementation of the past agreements.

Speaking in special time of the parliament Ram Chandra Poudel said the NC is tired of promises from the Maoists, which never get implemented. He even warned of disrupting house session if their demands are not met. "The government makes promises, which it never keeps," he said.

Meanwhile, Minister for Defence Ram Bahadur Thapa, clarified to the house that he had not meet Kali Bahadur Kham, accused murder of businessman Ramhari Shrestha. "There is no question of meeting an accused of murder and suspended from the party," he told the house.

Shrestha was murdered in UNMIN-monitored Shaktikhor cantonment in Chitwan soon after the CA election. Kham was seen with Thapa last month and he is believed to have been residing inside the camp looking after overall management of the cantonment.

Besides Kham, two other Maoist combatants -- Keshav Adhikari and Ganga Bahadur Thapa -- were held responsible for murdering Shrestha after abducting him from his house earlier this year and charged with stealing money and a UN-registered weapon from Kham.

After tremendous pressure from different quarters, Maoist leadership had pledged to search for the absconding trio and hand them over.