KATHMANDU, July 11: Secretary of the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Ganesh Prasad Pandey, and Secretary of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, Krishna Hari Pushkar, have said that Secretary of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Krishna Bahadur Raut, should not be detained for fulfilling his duties. They have also demanded that Raut be released immediately. Secretaries Pandey and Pushkar reached the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers on Monday morning and conveyed the same message to the Chief Secretary.
They argued that section 57 of the Civil Service Act should not be used to discourage the termination of government secretaries and employees.
There were more than a dozen secretaries present at the Office of Prime Minister including Chief Secretary Baikuntha Aryal, Finance Secretary Arjun Prasad Pokharel, Revenue Secretary Ram Ghimire and Law Secretary Dhanaraj Gyawali.
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Communications Secretary Raut was recently arrested by the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police in connection with the Lalita Niwas Land-grab scam.
The government secretaries who were silent when Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey was arrested on May 3 in connection with the fake Bhutanese refugee scam have opened up and lobbied in favor of Communications Secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut who was recently arrested for allegedly being involved in the land-grab scam. Section 57 (2) of the Civil Service Act mentions that a civil servant cannot be prosecuted in relation to any government work which s/he does while executing her/his duties, without complying with the due process.
According to Section 57 (1) of the Act, “No case may be instituted against any civil employee in respect of any government business performed by him/her considering it to be the carrying out of the duties of his/her post, without fulfilling the procedures as mentioned in Section 57 (2). According to Section 57 (2), “In order to institute a case against any civil employee pursuant to Section 57 (1), an approval of the Authority shall be required in respect of a criminal case; and the following matters have to be observed in respect of a civil case: (a) Two months have elapsed after a written notice stating the reasons for instituting the case and the name and address of the plaintiff and of his/her attorney, if any, has been delivered to the Authority or the concerned civil employee or sent by post through a registered mail and a copy of such notice has been submitted to Government of Nepal. (b) The case has been filed within eight months from the date of cause of action. (3) In respect of any act performed by any civil employee in the course of discharging the duties of his/her post while he/she was incumbent, no case may be instituted against him/her without the approval of the Government of Nepal, even after the termination of his/her service. (4) If the Government of Nepal gives approval to institute a case pursuant to Sub-section (3), The Government of Nepal shall defend on his/her behalf.”
On the basis of these provisions in the Civil Service Act, the government secretaries lobbied in favor of Secretary Raut.
The Kathmandu District Court has given the CIB two days to investigate Secretary Raut.
