It means that NHRC will have to reverse its decision on pay hike that was reported by Republica and Nagarik dailies Thursday. [break]
"The salary and allowances of the NHRC members will be as determined by the law," government spokesperson and Minister for Information and Communications Shankar Pokharel told journalists after the cabinet meeting.
Cabinet sources said the decision was taken in view of the decision by the NHRC commissioners to increase their salaries and allowances on their own.
NHRC commissioners invoking the NHRC Act and "past precedents" recently increased their own salaries and allowances. The increased salaries and allowances are at par with Supreme Court judges and higher than the commissioners of the other constitutional bodies.
But the government has maintained that NHRC cannot take such a decision now although the latter had done so in the past. Officials at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers argued that the NHRC has become a constitutional body and only the cabinet can take such a decision much in the way it does in the case of commissioners of other constitutional bodies.
In the meantime, Republica has found that NHRC members except for Dr Leela Pathak hiked their own salaries and other facilities though the government had fixed their new remunerations in July. In a letter dated July 24, the Ministry of Finance had informed the NHRC about the new salary of the chief commissioner and commissioners. The letter obtained by Republica says that the chief commissioner shall get Rs 27,360 per month and commissioners Rs 25,800 as salaries. But NHRC commissioners raised the salary of the chief commissioner and commissioners to Rs 30,420 and Rs 28,290 respectively.
"We had received the government letter but the salaries mentioned were unacceptable to us because NHRC Act allows the commission to determine the salaries of commissioners at par with that of Supreme Court judges," NHRC Secretary Bishal Khanal said.
Khanal further said that NHRC Act has not been amended after the commission was made constitutional. "So NHRC took the decision as per the Act," Khanal said.
The cabinet took up the issue as directed by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, sources said. According to sources, Nepal had called Chief Secretary Madhav Ghimire after he read the news on pay-hike in Republica and Nagarik Thursday morning. The cabinet secretary had summoned NHRC Secretary Bishal Khanal for clarification.
NHRC´s take
In the meantime, NHRC has refuted the news on their pay hike saying that the figures of salaries and allowances were wrongly reported. It said that the figures reported in Republica and Nagarik also included salary and allowance raises of the past two months (Shrawan and Bhadra).
But the documents obtained by Republica, which bear the signatures of Chief Commissioner Kedar Nath Upadhayay and Secretary Khanal, show that they increased the salary of the chief commissioner and commissioners to Rs 32,660 and Rs 31,160 respectively. It said that the hiked salary figures stand at Rs 30,420 and Rs 28,920 respectively.
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