The paper attempts to examine Constitutions and Operational Plans (OPs) from social, technical, institutional and financial dimensions of community forest management and find similarities, differences and inconsistencies, and explore the reasons for the findings of study. This study has reviewed sixty-four constitutions and seventy six OPs of Community Forestry User Groups (CFUGs) in three Terai districts of Western Nepal, namely Kapilbastu, Rupendhi and Nawalparasi. The study reveals that constitutions and OPs are almost similar from social, technical, institutional and financial dimension of community forest management and they are even similar in its management objectives and plans of actions. The decision making process, benefit sharing mechanisms are ill defined in both OPs and constitutions. Most of them are copied from the previous plans and activities prescribed are either inadequate or just mentioned to meet the topics or headings suggested by CFUG guidelines. Major reasons for this include lack of awareness among users, noncompliance of participatory processes with CFUGs, undefined accountability among stakeholders of CFUGs, lack of adequate technical skills and knowledge among field staffs, inadequate post formation support to CFUGs and present political situation, etc.