Former chief executive officer (CEO) of
the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) Sushil Gyawali Monday filed a
lawsuit at the Supreme Court, claiming his removal from the post was illegal
and ill-intended.
In the case registered at the court, he
has demanded reinstatement to the post.
Gyawali has demanded that the court
nullify the Cabinet’s decision to sack him from the post and appoint Dr.
Govinda Raj Pokharel as the chief of the NRA through a certiorari.
The government, Office of the Prime
Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM), the Cabinet, Prime Minister and Dr.
Pokharel are the defendants in the writ.
“I was appointed as per Article 11(3) of the
NRA Act 2015, which maintains that the CEO is appointed for a 5-year term,”
Gyawali said in his 14-page-long writ-application. “I had been fulfilling the
duties set by the law.”
He has claimed the reconstruction works
were moving satisfactorily, and the government and the donor agencies had appreciated
the progress made by the NRA.
He said that the government removed him
from the post without studying his twice-furnished clarifications.
“The government made a case that I was
unable to forge coordination among the government agencies for the reconstruction,
which is not the case, as I was continuously communicating with the concerned
ministries and other stakeholders,” reads the writ.
Gyawali has mentioned that his removal
was not related to his work efficiency but an implementation of the pre-agreement
and plan of the defendants.
The writ reads that the NRA, under the
leadership of Gyawali, identified 626,036 quake-affected families who were eligible
for the house reconstruction grant, signed grant agreements with 544,996
households and deposited the first installment of the grant money - Rs. 50,000
- in the bank accounts of 459,886 families.
“After the government decided to raise the grant money to
Rs. 300,000 in September last year, the NRA had submitted its action plan to
the Cabinet to increase the second and third installments amount to Rs. 150,000
and Rs. 100,000 from the earlier Rs. 80,000 and Rs. 70,000 respectively. But
the Cabinet had approved the action plan on the very day it decided to seek a
clarification from me about the delay in distributing the house reconstruction
grant to the quake-victims,” reads the writ.
Likewise, Gyawali said that the NRA Steering Committee
meeting in the last week of October had directed the Ministry of General
Administration to provide the required human resources within 15 days. But the ministry
has not supplied the manpower required by the NRA so far.
A Cabinet meeting on
January 11 had given Gyawali marching orders, accusing him of inefficiency in
expediting the reconstruction works as per the government’s expectations, and had
appointed Dr. Pokharel as the chief of the reconstruction body.
Stunned at being fired
from the NRA, Gyawali said, "The unjust decision of the Cabinet has forced
me to seek legal remedies. It is necessary to ensure justice to the
quake-affected people by expediting the reconstruction works."
The erstwhile Sushil Koirala-led government had appointed
Pokharel, then the incumbent vice-chairmen of the National Planning Commission,
as the CEO of the NRA about one-and- a-half years ago.
But he had to leave office as the government failed to
get the approval of the parliament on the Reconstruction Ordinance.
The government had twice sought clarification from
Gyawali, blaming him for his inability to mobilise the required staff for
the post-quake reconstruction, implement the instructions of the NRA Steering
Committee, poor coordination with the government agencies and delay in the
distribution of the house reconstruction grant.
He had submitted his clarifications to the government on January
4 and 8.
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