KATHMANDU, March 1: The Supreme Court has given continuity to its previous stay order to the government not to implement its decision to appoint Jaya Bahadur Chand as the Inspector General of Nepal Police.
According to Biswa Paudel, deputy spokesperson at the Supreme Court, a division bench of justices Hari Krishna Karki and Tej Bahadur KC on Wednesday issued the interim order not to appoint Chand as the IGP until the court gives the final verdict. The bench also ordered the court administration to present all of the related writ petitions to a full bench of the apex court.
The bench stated that the promotion proposal forwarded by the Ministry of Home Affairs seemed to be prepared without evaluating the candidates in line with the criteria set by the Nepal Police Regulation.
The regulation states that the decision to promote police officials should be taken after evaluating the competence and leadership skills of the prospective candidate.
"It is found that the basis and reasons of promoting the particular candidate have not been clearly mentioned while taking the decision of promotion," stated the court order.
Likewise, the court stated that the documents presented by the government to the court does not acknowledge that the writ petitioner, DIG Nawaraj Silwal, was also considered as a candidate in the promotion process and was also evaluated in line with the provision of the Nepal Police Regulation.
The government had decided to appoint Chand as the IGP on February 12 but the apex court on the same day issued an interim order to stay the decision until both sides presented their argument in the court. After both sides presented their arguments on the appointment decision, the court ordered to give continuity the previous stay order.
Advocate Kapil Dev Dhakal had filed a writ petition demanding promotion of the senior-most DIG to the post of IGP while DIG Nawaraj Silwal, one of the aspirants for the top post, had also filed a separate writ petition to stop the government decision of appointing Chand as the IGP.
Following the court's initial order, the government had assigned AIG Dr Dinesh Chandra Pokharel from the technical line as the acting IGP.
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