Maximum fine for CIAA secy: Court

KATHMANDU, April 8: The Special Court on Friday ordered its officials to fine maximum amount from Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Secretary Bhagwati Kafle if he fails to furnish within a week original files related to 12 civil servants fined by the court on charges of misconduct.

Special Court judges Gauri Bahadur Karki and Om Prakash Mishra issued order to this effect after Kafle didn´t comply with five previous court orders.


Twelve officials of the Remote Areas Development Committee who had visited New Delhi, India, one and a half year ago had claimed 27,000 for pocket expense. The CIAA, however, concluded that receiving pocket expense was a bad conduct and that the amount should be recovered from them.

In their defense, the officials had argued that receiving pocket expense was not against the law and filed an application at the Special Court for a review saying CIAA´s decision to recover the amount from them was inappropriate.

Immediately after the registration of the review application, the registrar of the court ordered the commission to furnish the original files related to the 12 officials.

According to a court official Bhim Bahadur Niraula, the Special Court had dispatched three letters to the commission and two separate letters in the name of Secretary Kafle asking them to furnish original files related to the government employees.

The court´s first order went unheard. The court than issued two more orders in the name of CIAA but again they were largely ignored. The Special Court than issued two separate orders in the name of CIAA Secretary Kafle asking him to present the files but even that yielded no results.

"The office of CIAA is only 3km from the Special Court. It seems that the CIAA secretary deliberately doesn´t want to furnish the files. The bench hereby orders court officials to file a case against Kafle fining maximum possible amount if he doesn´t furnish the original files within seven days," reads the court order.

This is probably the first instance of the Special Court issuing a stern verdict against a CIAA secretary along with a maximum fine. Secretary Kafle was not available for comment.