Kathmandu, November 21

The constitutional bench of the Supreme Court today ruled that delegation of all powers of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority to its secretary was unconstitutional.

The SC delivered this verdict on a petition filed by Shyam Sundar Yadav and others against the CIAA. The full text of the verdict is yet to be prepared.  Petitioners’ lawyer Advocate Tikaram Bhattarai said his clients had argued that delegating anti-graft body’s powers to CIAA secretary before the expiry of the term of CIAA commissioners was unconstitutional.

He said the CIAA board had delegated all its powers to the then secretary Bhagwati Kumar Kafle in  2010, a day before its term  ended paving the way for Kafle to file dozens of corruption cases in the Special Court for three years until he retired from service. Asked what will be the status of the cases filed by the former CIAA secretary, Bhattarai said only the full text of the verdict would make things clear about the cases field by Kafle.

The constitutional bench is led by Chief Justice Om Prakash Mishra. Other members of the bench are justices Deepak Raj Joshee, Cholendra Shamsher JB Rana, Deepak Kumar Karki and Kedar Prasad Chalise.