Valley
SC allows CIAA Commissioner Gurung to resume work
The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Sabitri Thapa Gurung, a commissioner at the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, to resume work at the anti-graft body by scrapping a writ petition filed against her.The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Sabitri Thapa Gurung, a commissioner at the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, to resume work at the anti-graft body by scrapping a writ petition filed against her.
A division bench of Justices Sushila Karki and Devendra Gopal Shrestha declined to issue an interim order in a writ filed against Commissioner Gurung. The petitioner had objected to Gurung, who is a professor at Tribhuvan University, receiving salary from both the offices breaching the legal requirement of resigning from one before joining another.
The CIAA had relieved Commissioner Gurung of her responsibilities until a court verdict in the case against her over “double employment”.
Gurung headed investigations into complaints related to the ministries of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Irrigation, Foreign, Defence, Urban Development, and Commerce and Supplies. She had also been looking into complaints registered at the commission’s regional office and contact centres in Surkhet, Dipayal, Kanchanpur and Kohalpur.
On a separate writ concerning the term of CIAA Commissioner Keshav Baral, the division bench of Justices Karki and Shrestha did not issue any verdict despite conducting a hearing. The bench recommended the case to the constitutional bench at the apex court.
Baral’s term expires on Wednesday. He had moved the apex court demanding that his tenure as the commissioner be maintained from the day he took his oath. The Constitutional Council appointed him on January 21, 2010, when all the posts of the commissioners including the chief commissioner were vacant.
His appointment was activated only after he took his official oath from Lok Man Singh Karki following the latter’s appointment as the chief commissioner on May 8, 2013. In the writ petition, Baral has demanded that his tenure should be extended till May 8, 2019. Baral, in his petition, states that the delay in his swearing-in was due to technical reasons. He had demanded mandamus from the court arguing that his post had remained defunct for long after his appointment.