In an unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court of Nepal Monday scrapped the controversial Royal Commission for Corruption Control (RCCC). Now, it has become almost sure that former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his ministerial colleague Prakash Man Singh, who are under the RCCC detention on a corruption charge, will be released.
The Court in its historic verdict today concluded that the formation of the RCCC was unconstitutional. It also ruled that the orders forming and continuing the Commission was against the spirit of the 1990 Constitution.
On July 26 last year, the royal anti-graft body slapped a two-year jail sentence and Rs.90 million in fine to both Deuba and Singh in its verdict on the Melamchi Drinking Water project case.

The King formed a six-member RCCC to “contain corruption” under the Emergency provisions of the Constitution on Feb. 17 last year. As the state of emergency was lifted in April last year, the king gave continuity to the RCCC through a royal decree under Article 127 of the Constitution.

Stating that the RCCC case is not political but a constitutional one, today’s SC verdict says that questions can be raised against the work performed by the king at the court.

Otherwise, heavy discussion was surfacing on the issue that no question should be raised on any performance by the king in the past days.

Contrary to this conclusion, the case against the Feb.1 royal takeover has not been presented in the court. Even several other “review” cases on revival of House in the court are collecting dusts.

Deuba and Singh will be presented before the SC on a habeas corpus case against the arrest filed by them, on Tuesday. So they were not released today.

In late June, the commission had cleared Deuba of one corruption count but continued to hold him on a charge relating to the granting of a contract in a road building scheme linked to the 464-million dollar Melamchi Water Project to supply drinking water to the parched capital.

Four others charged in the same case - the contractor, engineer, former secretary and director of the Melamchi Water Project – had been sentenced to one to two years in prison and fined Rs 22 million to Rs 90 million.

Deuba, had claimed the charges were part of “character assassination” by the royalist government set up after the king seized power. Deuba, however had remained silent when the verdict and sentence were read out.

Deuba, who had denied wrongdoing, refused to testify before the RCCC, saying it was set up to wage a vendetta against politicians opposing unconstitutional Feb.1 takeover.

Deuba is the most senior politician to be jailed by the body, which has sweeping powers of arrest and punishment.

Today, the RCCC chairman Bhakta Bahadur Koirala said that he respected the SC’s verdict. He also said he will not come to his office from tomorrow (Tuesday).

Finally, some say, isn’t this move to release Deuba a ploy to re-appoint him as the prime minister to garner support from the parties, in a bid to foil the pro-republican mass movement? Well, I have nothing to say.

By Azad Swetaketu

This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2006 at 5:01 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.