Govt ordered to name Kafle NEA MD

KATHMANDU, JUL 31 -

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to name Mukesh Raj Kafle as the managing director of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) ruling that the appointment of Arjun Karki as a fill-in was illegal.

Chief Justice Damodar Sharma and Judge Cholendra Shumsher Rana handed down the verdict in response to Kafle’s petition that he should be appointed to the post as he had been selected as the second choice behind the then managing director Rameshwor Yadav who was suspended after being implicated in a procurement scandal.

Yadav has since retired, and Karki was transferred as the NEA’s regional administrator of the Western Development Region in June. Currently, a senior NEA official Ram Chandra Pandey is serving as the officiating managing director.

The court’s verdict has come six days after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) directed the government to appoint a managing director at the NEA.   Kafle had moved the court in March arguing that he should be appointed as the new NEA chief after Yadav was charged with corruption and suspended from the post, opening the way for others to be appointed to the top job at the electricity utility.  

The government had put Karki in the managing director’s post by amending the service regulation. Plaintiff Kafle argued that Karki’s appointment was unlawful as the provision states that if the incumbent MD is removed from his post within a year, the alternative candidate should automatically be appointed as the next MD.  Although Karki had been appointed as the NEA’s managing director until the court’s verdict on Yadav after the CIAA filled a corruption case at the Special Court, Yadav can no longer continue as the MD even if the court gives a verdict in his favour as he has already retired.

In February this year, the CIAA filed corruption cases against top NEA officials at the Special Court. Charges were filed against former NEA executive director Jibendra Jha and managing directors Rameshwor Yadav, Yugal Kishor Saha and Chiranjivi Sharma Poudel along with 13 senior officials.

Accusing them of involvement in the transformer procurement scam, the CIAA has sought Rs 79.12 million from them besides confiscation of their property worth an equivalent amount.

Source: The Kathmandu Post