Top bureaucrats have intensified their lobbying against a new provision in the Civil Service Bill that bars retired government employees from holding political appointments for two years after leaving office.

On Thursday, a group of secretaries led by Chief Secretary Ek Narayan Aryal visited Speaker Devraj Ghimire at his office in Singha Durbar to express their dissatisfaction with the proposed ‘cooling-off period’.

The bill, passed by the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives, provides that the civil servants can be eligible for political appointments only after two years of retirement. The bureaucrats have objected to this particular clause in the bill.

After meeting with the Speaker, they also met the chairman of the National Assembly, Narayan Dahal, on the same day to voice similar concerns.

They had visited Prime Minister and CPN-UML chair KP Sharma Oli on Monday and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba on Tuesday to express their discontent on the same.

They argue that it is unfair to apply a cooling-off period exclusively to civil servants. They added that they would not oppose the provision if it were incorporated into the broader legal framework governing appointments to constitutional bodies.

The bill, passed from the House committee on May 16, includes a cooling-off period provision which states that individuals who retired from the civil service will not be eligible for constitutional, diplomatic, or political appointments for two years after leaving office.

The bill becomes law once the House of Representatives and the National Assembly pass and the President approves it.

According to Speaker Ghimire’s personal secretary, Shekhar Adhikari, the Speaker responded positively to their concerns and said he would again discuss the matter with them after the House debates on the bill.

“I will discuss the matter with you all after the bill is tabled and deliberated in the House meetings,” Adhikari quoted Ghimire as saying.

At least 21 secretaries under the leadership of Chief Secretary Aryal visited Speaker Ghimire to express their concern.

Former law and justice secretary Mohan Banjade termed the cooling-off period “unnecessary”. Banjade said the government may use this provision to appoint people from the civil society to various positions, bypassing retired bureaucrats.

He also argued that politicians might have taken this decision due to constant lobbying by retired bureaucrats seeking appointments.

Even as the top bureaucrats were busy on Thursday lobbying against the provision, the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee chair, Ramhari Khatiwada, ruled out the possibility of removing the provision.

He said that as the committee has already finalised the bill and forwarded it to the full House, there is no chance of his committee revising it.

“We are not saying bureaucrats are inefficient, but only giving them time to reenergise should they decide to join any government position through political appointment,” Khatiwada said.

Khatiwada termed the Civil Service Bill the ‘constitution’ of civil servants and said that many secretaries in the past have made decisions to appease political leadership in the hope of securing appointments after retirement.

“Civil service includes everyone from support staff to chief secretary and it’s not possible to draft something that satisfies everyone,” Khatiwada said. “The Civil Service Bill is essentially the constitution for civil servants. Deciding whether it is constitutional is not your or my responsibility. There is a separate body to look into that.”

He also criticised the practice of seeking appointments immediately after leaving the civil service. “If politicians and the civil servants seeking a new appointment the very next day after retirement work in collusion, that will undermine the very spirit of the federal constitution,” Khatiwada said.

A former secretary, echoing Khatiwada, said there is a growing tendency among bureaucrats to show loyalty to political parties.

While such tendencies have long existed among lower-level employees, the former secretary, who does not want to be identified, believes that, in recent times, this anomaly has afflicted higher-level officials.

“It appears that government employees are becoming more and more loyal to the party and leaders who promote them,” the former secretary said. “The expansion of party-affiliated organisations in the bureaucracy is a key reason behind the recent problems.”

In a multi-party system, political parties with a majority in Parliament form governments and create policies and laws. While the government is the policy-maker, the bureaucracy is responsible for implementing those policies and laws. When the so-called permanent government—the bureaucracy—comes under the control of the temporary, elected government, there is a risk of the entire system going out of balance.

However, Roj Nath Pandey, a secretary at the Parliament Secretariat, said that their meeting with the Speaker should not be interpreted as an attempt to exert pressure on political leadership. Pandey told mediapersons that their only concern is that the civil servants should not be disqualified from future responsibilities after retirement.

“A person who has already retired from the civil service should not be governed by a civil service law,” Pandey argued. “We have no objection to a cooling-off period, but such a provision should be included in right places—such as the Constitution or the Act related to the appointment of officials in constitutional bodies.”

When the top bureaucrats opposed the new civil service bill and its provision related to the cooling-off period, civil servants from lower ranks staged a sit-in at Singha Durbar on Thursday, alleging that their demands had been ignored in the civil service bill.

Protesting employees claim that the draft law includes a provision to block lower-level staff from being promoted for up to 20 years. Members of various civil servant unions and associations are said to have participated in the demonstration.

They further allege that the bill, which has been passed by the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee and is set to be tabled in the House of Representatives, has been tailored to benefit senior officials.

“After the top level of bureaucracy did not heed our concerns and focused only on their own interests, we were compelled to protest in order to express our dissatisfaction with the bill,” said a non-gazetted first-class officer.