Kathmandu, July 6 -- After a week of dispute and controversy, five major political parties in the House of Representatives have decided to set up a special parliamentary committee to look into the tampering of the civil service bill.

The decision was taken on Saturday during a meeting convened by Speaker Devraj Ghimire with the chief whips of the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML, the CPN (Maoist Centre), the Rastriya Swatantra Party and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP).

On Wednesday, the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee had requested the Speaker to form a high-level committee to probe the inclusion of a provision in the report on the Federal Civil Service Bill that dilutes the bill's 'cooling-off period' mandate.

According t...