SC asks govt to bare all

Kathmandu, March 13- The Supreme Court on sunday directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to submit each and every decision of governments from 1975 while sending Royal Nepalese Army personnel in peacekeeping missions abroad.

Following a hearing, a division bench of Justices Ram Nagina Singh and Rajendra Prasad Bhandari pronounced the order.

The bench also told the Ministry to produce each and every agreement between the United Nations and the government while sending army personnel for peace missions.

Citing insufficient written explanations submitted by the Ministry, the bench told the authorities to produce each and every decision regarding each and every peacekeeping mission.

The bench found contradictory written explanations submitted by the Ministry and the RNA Headquarters on the issue.The bench observed that the Ministry is yet to implement the SC’s one-and-a-half-year-old order demanding agreements between the UN and the government.

The RNA, in its explanation, had said that there are separate government decisions regarding each and every peacekeeping missions and different agreements between the government and the United Nations while sending battalions, but the Ministry had only sent the agreement signed between the UN and the government on 2004 regarding the army personnel’s deployment in the Burundi mission.

During sunday's hearing, government attorney Surendra Thapa told the bench that the Auditor General’s audit report on the RNA’s Welfare Fund has already been submitted to the bench. However, when the judges said they did not get the report and neither was the report attached in the case-file and tried to write an order to the Office of the Auditor General, Thapa said the audit report may have been sent in a “secret manner” and claimed if the report is not with the apex court he will produce it within five minutes. “There is no need for a second order; I will produce the report within five minutes,” Thapa told the bench. Assuring the bench, he left for his office but did not return within the given time frame. Ultimately, the bench again passed the order to the Office of the Auditor General to produce the report.

Pleading on behalf of chairman of the Ex-armies’ Independent Council of Nepal, Ambar Bahadur Thapa Magar, Advocate Subhas Chandra Nembang sought the SC’s order to the authorities to produce all decisions regarding the issue.

Ambar Bahadur Thapa Magar had filed the petition four years ago seeking allowances as per the agreement between the UN and the government and to make public all expenditures of the RNA Welfare Fund.