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Kathmandu, Nepal: With the ousting of controversial Lokman Singh Karki from the post of chief commissioner of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the widespread raised concern of now is that the only constitutional anti graft body would be remain paralyzed due to dillydallying to appoint the ‘appropriate person.’
While announcing Karki unfit to hold the post of the chief of the CIAA, the Supreme Court (SC) had ruled on Sunday that he be replaced by a ‘qualified person.’ While declaring Karki unqualified, the apex court had also directed the government to appoint a person qualified as per the constitution.
Though the SC has not specified about the qualifications of to be appointed person, it has clearly stated in the verdict to appoint a person qualified as per the constitution. Symbolically, the verdict has raised a serious question over the attitude and intention of the political parties and other concerned stake holders responsible to the appointment process.
Another, serious question of now is that who is going to be appointed as the new chief of the CIAA. Following the landmark verdict, the people in genera also seem suspicious over the future course of anticorruption movements in the country.
As political parties used to be motivated with vested political interests while appointing either commissioners in the CIAA like constitutional bodies or any other state agencies, it is being feared that political parties would influence the government to repeat again such a mistake by appointing disqualified person to fulfill their vested political interest.
Another complication emerged to qualified chief commissioner is existing setup of the CIAA. As the constitutional provision does not allow appointing more than five commissioners, including the chief commissioner, there would not be alternative of appointing one of the commissioners as the chief commissioner of the CIAA.
The CIAA has already five commissioners- Deep Basnyat, Nabin Kumar Ghimire, Ganesh Raj Joshi, Raj Narayan Pathak and Sabitri Thapa Gurung. All of them including Karki were appointed as per the provision of the interim constitution.
But the Article 238(6) of the constitution clearly states that one should have at least 20 years of experience in the fields of accounting, revenue, engineering, law, development or research and he/she should be a distinguished person to hold the commissioner's position.
To appoint someone into the post of chief commissioner from outside, either one of the commissioners has to resign or remove through the impeachment or be declared unfit from the Court to hold the post of commissioners of the CIAA, just as it happened in the case of Karki.
As of Karki, four commissioners’ qualification to hold the posts has also been questioned over their qualifications and the appointment process as well. As Karki got removed from his responsibilities for not having 20 years of working experience in government services, remaining four other commissioners would also be removed on the same ground as they have also been accused of not having 20 years of working experience as stated in the new constitution.
In the writ petition filed by Dakshya Bahadur Chhetri at the apex court in last November, none of the existing commissioner except Pathak has 20 years of working experience in government offices.
Interestingly, commissioner Pathak also would not fit to appoint as the CIAA Chief Commissioner as he was also dragged into controversies for involving in the controversial activities while investigating in the fraud cases. Renowned orthopedic Dr. Govinda KC, who had exerted pressure to the parties to impeach Karki, had also demanded to impeach even Pathak in the alleged charge of involving in the misconduct while investigating some corruption cases.
There is also an argument that remaining commissioners also be removed from their position in the context of their head already removed from responsibility for not meeting the criteria set by the constitution. These all legal, constitutional and political complications to appoint the chief commissioner would obviously delay the appointment process triggering setback in the anticorruption movement.
Though Commissioner Basnyat is working in capacity of acting chief commissioner of the CIAA based on seniority since Karki was suspended on October 19 after lawmakers registered an impeachment motion in the parliament, the CIAA has done nothing except some minor activities to control the rampant corruption in the country.
