Eyebrows were raised when Dr. Baikuntha Aryal was promoted to Chief Secretary two days before his retirement from government service on June 15, 2023. One year later, Aryal has fallen from grace as the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a corruption case against him on June 23, marking the first instance in Nepal’s bureaucratic history where a sitting Chief Secretary has faced graft charges. The anti-graft body lodged the case with the Supreme Court, charging Dr. Aryal and 11 others of committing financial irregularities worth Rs 386.7 million in a deal related to the printing of excise duty stickers. With this, Aryal has automatically been suspended from his position as per Section 33 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002. However, the government has transferred him to the National Planning Commission, creating a special post equivalent to that of a Chief Secretary. Aryal's name has been repeatedly associated with controversies related to procurement of Telecommunication Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System (Teramocs) equipment, 'improper' and 'suspicious' financial transactions in the Security Printing Centre and the procurement of excise duty stickers. Aryal, who became Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Communications on August 9, 2021, was transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office on March 28, 2023, from where he was supposed to retire. However, when then-Chief Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi resigned from his position two days before Aryal’s retirement, Aryal secured the plum post. Bairagi was later rewarded by appointing him as the the national security adviser.