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Police open probe against Silwal on forgery charge
A week after the Supreme Court directed the government to take action against those involved in forging of performance evaluation report of former Deputy Inspector General and the recently elected member of the House of Representatives,Manish Gautam
A week after the Supreme Court directed the government to take action against those involved in forging of performance evaluation report of former Deputy Inspector General and the recently elected member of the House of Representatives, Nawaraj Silwal, Nepal Police on Wednesday registered a complaint against him to investigate into the matter.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rabindra Dhanuk, chief of Metropolitan Police Range, confirmed that the investigation has begun formally after the Nepal Police headquarters handed the case to the Range.
Following the investigation, police will file case in the Kathmandu District Court.
Police will first study the documents that were presented before the court.
“Those persons who are found guilty will not be spared,” said SSP Dhanuk.
Police had consulted with the Office of Attorney General before beginning the investigation. The apex court in its full text of the decision in a case related to appointment of the chief of Nepal Police has said there were discrepancies between performance evaluation reports presented by the Public Service Commission and petitioner Silwal, and that a thorough investigation and action were required against those involved in document forgery.
Silwal had first moved the SC on February 12, challenging the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government’s decision to promote DIG Jay Bahadur Chand to the post of Inspector General of Nepal Police.
But on March 21, the apex court quashed the government decision to appoint Chand as police chief, directing the government to take into account seniority, merit and performance while promoting officials.
On the basis of the performance appraisal report submitted by Silwal, the bench had observed that Silwal had the highest marks among the four contenders—Chand, Silwal, Prakash Aryal and Bam Bahadur Bhandari.
The decision was believed to have cleared the decks for Silwal to get the post of police chief. But a month later, the government on April 10 appointed Aryal as the new police chief, prompting Silwal to move the SC again. But his petition was quashed.
The Dahal-led government had appointed Aryal as chief of Nepal Police, saying that the decision was taken after reviewing the marks obtained by the four contenders “in the last four years based on their performance, qualification, seniority and prize, among others”. The SC said the decision was lawful.
After failing to get promotion to the post of police chief, Silwal resigned from the security force and joined the CPN-UML. He then went on to win a seat in the House of Representatives from Lalitpur-1. Silwal in his petition had argued that “there have been irregularities during the review of work performance reports” of the four contenders. He had claimed that a review panel had deducted two points from his score sheet to promote Aryal to the post of IGP. This evaluation sheet presented by Silwal and his advocates has been deemed fake.