KATHMANDU: The Constitutional Committee (CC) of the Constituent Assembly today discussed ways of making the role of Commission for the Investigation of the Abuse of Authority (CIAA) effective.

A 15-member study team led by CPN-UML CA member Agni Kharel, which scrutinised the report prepared by the CA committee on Structure of the Constitutional Bodies, could not agree on a single view.

While preparing its report, the CA Committee on the Structure of the Constitutional Bodies had proposed that CIAA should take advice from government’s Attorney General before prosecuting any government official on charges of corruption. But this proposal was challenged by many of the members in the CA full House.

After it failed to come up with a common view on the CIAA, the Kharel panel advised the CC to decide on whether it should be given continuity with the existing power or it should be replaced with a new one, whether the anti-corruption body should remain directly under the executive head (Prime Minister or President) which is in practice in India (CBI) and the USA (FBI) respectively.

Some, particularly the UCPN-M members suggested that the anti-graft body should function under the executive head, who will be held accountable for corruption in the government establishment.

Sources said that Nepali Congress CA member Radheshyam Adhikari suggested that it should be scrapped as it failed to function as desired by the constitution and the general people.

UML members in the CC are learnt to have insisted on giving continuity to the existing structure of the CIAA.