Home Minister Sudan Gurung has warned officials and employees working under his ministry and its agencies that they will face action if they misuse their positions to leak confidential or sensitive information to unauthorised individuals or institutions.

Gurung said access to sensitive information came with a public responsibility, not a licence to misuse it. “Anyone who deliberately betrays the country and the organisation by violating the confidentiality entrusted to them by the state will not be spared and will be brought before the law,” Gurung said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

His warning comes amid the suspension of Banshiraj Dahal, an additional inspector general of the Armed Police Force, over allegations of leaking sensitive security-related information and violating official conduct.

According to home ministry spokesperson Ananda Kafle, Dahal was suspended after the Armed Police Force recommended disciplinary action against him. A ministry statement signed by Kafle said a committee had been formed to investigate the allegations and submit its findings to the ministry within three days.

The ministry has not disclosed what information Dahal is accused of leaking.

A senior Armed Police Force official said Dahal was accused of visiting former chief justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana without permission on the morning of September 27.

The Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office took Rana from his home to a police office around midnight, citing a security threat to the former chief justice. Senior Armed Police Force officials said Dahal, who is also a relative of Rana, later went to the police office to meet him.

The suspension came just days after the Armed Police Force headquarters recommended extending Dahal’s tenure. He is due to complete his four-year term and retire on October 13.

Under the Armed Police Force Regulations 2015, the government can extend the tenure of additional inspector generals and deputy inspector generals by one year after they complete four years in office, on the recommendation of the force’s inspector general. Such extensions have routinely been granted to most AIGs and DIGs.

Unless his tenure is extended, Dahal will retire as scheduled, leaving one AIG position vacant and potentially opening the post to senior DIGs.