Kathmandu, February 27, 2007

Overruling its controversial judgment in the Mahalaxmi Sugar Mills case that curtailed the authority of the Credit Information Bureau (CIB) to put any firm in its blacklist, the Supreme Court today directed a sugar mills to pay back Rs 57 crore to banks.

A division bench of Justices Min Bahadur Rayamajhi and Sharada Shrestha directed the Basuling Sugar Mills owned by Arun Chand, son of former prime minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, to pay back the banks’ loan. The bench also said that the court cannot remove the Mills from the blacklist as the CIB had the authority to blacklist any willful defaulter firm.

According to a lawyer of the Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank had directed the CIB to blacklist Chand’s firm as it had not paid back the loan even after several directions by the banks and financial institutions which had given the firm loans. The firm had taken the loan from the Rastriya Banijya Bank, Nepal Bank Limited, Agricultural Development Bank, Nepal Industrial Development Corporation and Employees Provident Fund Chand, the owner of the firm, had filed a writ petition 21 months ago claiming that the CIB had no authority to blacklist his firm.

This is the first case decided by the Supreme Court in favour of the banks to recover their loans after the parliamentary attempt to impeach a few Supreme Court judges who had lifted the Mahalaxmi Sugar Mills from blacklist.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had recommended the House of Representatives to impeach the judges who had removed Mahalaxmi Sugar Mills from the black list.

Curtains for Dangi as NTB chief

Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, February 27, 2007

All hopes for an extension of the tenure for the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) chief executive officer Teg Bahadur Dangi were dashed as the Board today decided against it.

The official was reportedly informed about the board’s decision in the afternoon by the tourism secretary, Madhav Prasad Ghimire. “I’m really disappointed because I was hoping to get this extension so as to continue my unfinished tasks at NTB,” said Dangi. He claimed to have presented his case at length with the board but felt he lost out ‘because one can only reason with people who are willing to listen’. When pointed out that the employees union were against his continuation as the NTB chief, Dangi shot back, “The union is very much with me. In fact, about 80-90 per cent of the people in the office wanted me to continue. But, I failed because of politics within the board.”

Interestingly, the employees union of NTB on Monday issued a press statement asking the government and concerned authorities not to extend the tenure of the CEO, charging him of misusing NTB funds and resources during the royal regime.