While the officials at PMO and the home ministry had claimed that the cabinet took the decision after getting a verbal consent from EC, the latter has denied the claim. The cabinet had decided to transfer 19 Deputy Inspector Generals and five Additional Inspector Generals of Nepal Police. [break]
"The commission has asked the government to cancel the transfers as they violate the electoral code of conduct," said Election Commissioner Ayodhi Prasad Yadav, who heads the code of conduct monitoring committee of the commission.
Sources said officials at PMO and the home ministry were surprised at the EC´s decision.
According to a senior official at the ministry that registered a proposal on Monday seeking cabinet nod for the transfer of 24 high ranking police officers, the ministry and the constitutional body had reached a “gentlemen´s agreement" on the transfers.
Accordingly, Home Secretary Sushil Jung Rana, who has also served the EC as a secretary in the past, had tabled the proposal in the cabinet on Monday.
"How can we propose the cabinet to make the transfers without EC´s consent?" said the official. Secretary Rana had visited the EC to seek the latter´s consent and submitted a list of police officers to be transferred.
"As the commission could not take any decision by Monday, we had obtained a verbal consent. Accordingly, the secretary prepared the proposal and submitted it to the cabinet. “The proposal clearly mentions that the commission has permitted the transfers," said a knowledgeable source.
"We do not know what prompted the commission to violate the agreement," said another senior official at PMO.
But a senior official at EC told Republica that though the transfers were discussed it had only permitted the government to fill up the vacant posts of inspectors, deputy superintendents of police and senior superintendents of police. "We had permitted the ministry to only to fill up vacancies," said the official seeking anonymity.
The source at the home ministry told Republica that the ministry is likely to make public the details of matter on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister´s Office on Tuesday wrote to all the ministries to strictly abide by the 12-point code of conduct for the election to the Constituent Assembly scheduled for November 22. "Though we had already directed the ministries to follow the code of conduct, we have issued yet another directive to the ministries on Tuesday," said another official at the PMO.
Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML have taken strong exception to the government´s decision to transfer high ranking officials.
"The NC has taken a strong exception to the government´s autocratic decisions and draws attention of the concerned authority to immediately scrap the decision," reads a statement issued by NC.
Similarly, the CPN-UML has warned that any move against the code of conduct for elections would not be tolerable to the party.
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