Rajesh Rai | Phuentsholing

Former Norgaygang gup Rinchen Dorji and mangmi Golay have filed a case at Samtse court against the home secretary, Samtse dzongkhag tshogdu secretary, and Samtse dzongkhag planning officer on October 25, for alleged administrative lapses.

The case is about a tshogpa training held in Phuentsholing in May 2019 when the home secretary was the then-Samtse dzongdag. In the submitted letter, the gup and mangmi said they had no choice other than to appeal to the court. 

The gup and mangmi said that their gewog tshogpas came to Phuentsholing as asked for the training. However, the training had been postponed. “We were not informed,” they said. 

They said six Norgaygang tshogpas had come to Phuentsholing for the training only to find it was postponed. The tshogpas then questioned the gup about the postponement, following which the gup had to ask for an explanation with the dzongkhag administration in an online group forum, as no one had informed him about the change. 

However, he said the dzongkhag administration gave them a warning letter over the inquiry. 

After that, the gup said that he had written to the Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs and the ministry had written to the Samtse DT chairman to solve the case as per the LG Act, or to study the case and write back.

Rinchen Dorji alleged that the dzongkhag administration has held a grudge against him since that time. 

“We wrote to the DT chairman in August of this year. He had submitted the case to the court,” the Rinchen Dorji said.

Meanwhile, the gup has also been embroiled in a farm road construction issue, which he said was a result of his inquiry into the tshogpa training to the dzongkhag administration. The case is in the Tashichholing drungkhag court. The farm road was constructed without prior approval, the dzongkhag administration pointed out. 

Rinchen Dorji, Golay, and a tshogpa also tendered their resignations over the farm road issue in June of this year. However, the DT chairman didn’t accept the resignation, saying the reasons were not substantial.