Minister for Labor, Employment and Social Security Deepak Kumar Sah lost his ministerial position within 13 days due to his infatuation with making his wife a member of the Health Insurance Board and his controversial remarks.
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Minister for Labor, Employment and Social Security Deepak Kumar Sah has lost his ministerial post within 13 days due to his obsession and controversial remarks about making his wife a member of the Health Insurance Board. He became the Minister of Labor on 13 Chaitra in the government led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah. Minister Sah had lobbied to make his wife Junu Shrestha a member of the Health Insurance Board. Prime Minister Shah removed her from the post after Minister Sah appointed his wife as a regular member of the Insurance Board, which had been inactive for a long time. Shrestha was reappointed as a member of the Health Insurance Board after Health Minister Nisha Mehta also gave the 'green signal'. Although the issue of appointing his wife was visible on the surface, even the Prime Minister's Office was dissatisfied with Minister Sah's latest statement. Minister Sah had gone beyond his jurisdiction and made controversial statements on the performance of the Insurance Board and the Ministry of Health on Wednesday. On the occasion of the 10th Health Insurance Day, he made a statement that not only the country's leaders but also the employees were drowning. 'The arrears of health insurance payments are huge. Three to four billion will be raised, but 28 to 30 billion will be spent. How will the government bear this? We are not in the right direction. First of all, let's do some self-criticism. I suggest our friends from the Health Insurance Board to do some self-criticism,' he said in the program, 'Our friends from the Health Ministry say that health insurance is separate. They take decisions on their own. But, the Health Insurance Board should always run under the pressure of a joint secretary of the Health Ministry. First of all, I urge the Health Ministry to rectify the situation.' He commented, 'If the Health Insurance Board is in such a weak, pathetic and painful situation so far, the Health Ministry has the most important role.' ‘It is not just the leaders, but the employees who have sunk this country, sir. It has started to feel like this since you took over the post of minister. You should be more self-aware of the employees. Stop rotating the leaders,’ he said in his address, ‘Are board members only required to sign? I don’t know what decision was made after signing. Whatever the chairman and member secretary write is valid. The use of rubber stamps only for board members should be stopped.’
Sah’s wife Shrestha had not attended the board meeting more than three times in a row, saying that members do not have an executive role. However, she attended the meeting on Chaitra 23. Immediately after that, the issue of Shrestha’s reappointment was discussed. If he does not attend the meeting for three times without informing, he will automatically be removed by law. ‘My appointment as a member of the Health Insurance Board was in 2080 BS. This appointment is for four years, i.e. till 2084 BS,’ Shrestha wrote in her Facebook status, ‘The current reappointment issue is beyond my knowledge. Also, I have not received any official information about it. Therefore, the news coming out regarding the current appointment is misleading. And I regret it.’ On the other hand, soon after becoming the Labor Minister, Sah’s old case from 9 years ago was made public. The then Metropolitan Crime Division (now Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office) arrested Sah and Ganesh Adhikari of Sindhuli on 16 Asoj 2073 BS, when he was the director of the then World Wide Consultancy, on the pretext of making him pass the MBBS exam. According to the police report, Sayasa Panta, a resident of Nagarjuna Municipality-2, Kathmandu, was accused of making an agreement with Panta's mother Bimala Panta to take Rs 200,000 from her in exchange for her passing the MBBS exam to be held at Kathmandu University from Asoj 15, saying that she worked at a global consultancy in Putalisadak and was well acquainted with various doctors. However, the district and appeal courts acquitted her in this case. On Mangsir 10, 2073, the bench of Kathmandu District Court Judge Krishna Kamal Adhikari acquitted her in the fraud case against Sah and Adhikari, saying that the claim was not sufficient. The government prosecutor's office filed an appeal against the district court's decision in the Patan High Court on Jestha 3, 2074. A bench of Patan High Court Judge Lekhnath Ghimire and Judge Dr. Ravi Sharma Aryal upheld the district court's decision on Asaj 3, 2074.
