We salute the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha for the landmark verdict handed down Wednesday, exposing the extent of misuse of authority by the former CIAA bosses. The verdict, a first of its kind in Nepal, ordered the State Affairs Committee of Parliament and the CIAA to immediately investigate and take necessary action against former acting chief commissioner Lalit Bahadur Limbu and former commissioner Ved Prakash Sivakoti.
According to the SC verdict, both of them exceeded their jurisdiction and grossly misused their powers in directing the Land Revenue Office to register state-owned land worth millions of rupees in the names of private individuals. The directive issued by the duo was furthermore in defiance of earlier verdicts handed down by Kathmandu District Court, Patan Appellate Court and the SC itself. In the past also the media had exposed Limbu’s dubious track record and questioned controversial decisions taken by him to the great detriment of innocent persons.
There were many such decisions but the one that people still remember is the CIAA´s corruption charge filed against then governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Bijaya Nath Bhattarai. As acting chief of the CIAA, Limbu flouted many standard practices to file a corruption case against the governor, who was determined to take tough action against influential individuals taking billions in loans from government-owned bank and refusing to pay back because they had the right political connections.
The corruption charges that led to Bhattarai’s suspension for almost 26 months before being given a clean cheat by the SC scuttled Nepal´s multi-million dollar financial sector reforms program. It is no exaggeration to say that had those reforms been implemented as planned, we would have been in a much better position to deal with most of the financial ills that bedevil us today.
As both Limbu and Sivakoti are found to have been involved in shameful misdeed, it’s high time the government took prompt action against the duo and demonstrated that it has no tolerance toward corrupt practices. There are reports of confusion within the government machinery over the mode of action to be taken against them. But beware! We are watching all this very closely and we believe there should be no dillydally. The two should not go unpunished.
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