The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday directed the government to furnish written clarification about its decision to appoint Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Prakash Aryal as the new Inspector General (IG) of Nepal Police within 15 days.

Responding to a writ petition filed by DIG Nawaraj Silwal on Tuesday seeking annulment of the government decision to promote DIG Aryal to the post of IG, a single bench of Justice Ishwor Prasad Khatiwada ordered the government to submit clarification in writing why Silwal, who was said to have the highest marks among the contenders, was not appointed to the top post of Nepal Police.

It has been learnt that a full bench would conduct hearing after the government submits its clarification. 

DIG Silwal, in his petition, had argued that there have been irregularities in the review of work performance evaluation of the four DIGs contending for the IG post. 

He had claimed that the review panel deducted two points from his score sheet to promote Aryal to the post of IG.

A Cabinet meeting on Monday had decided to pick Aryal from among four contenders—Aryal himself, Silwal, Bam Bahadur Bhandari and Jaya Bahadur Chand—after reviewing the marks the four top officials had secured in the last four years based on their performance, qualification, seniority and prize among others.

Earlier on March 21, the Supreme Court had quashed the government decision to appoint Chand as the chief of Nepali Police and instructed the government to take into account seniority, merit and performance while promoting officials. 

The apex bench had also observed that “DIG Silwal has the highest marks” among the contenders.