KATHMANDU, JULY 29

Democratic Socialist Party-Nepal leader Laxman Lal Karna, who chaired the special parliamentary committee formed to probe the alleged entry of unauthorised persons into the Ministry of Finance on May 28 to influence tweaking of taxes in the new fiscal budget, today submitted its report to the House of Representatives.

The committee concluded that the evidence gathered during investigation didn't prove that unauthorised persons entered the ministry on the eve of budget presentation. It said the CCTV footage retrieved by the Central Police Forensic Laboratory did not prove allegations that unauthorised persons entered the finance ministry on May 28, a day before the budget was presented in the House of Representatives.

The panel, however, said since the police laboratory could recover only 51 single frames and not the continuous footage, the panel could not get all the data.

The panel said all the office bearers of the finance ministry who were interviewed during the investigation claimed that no unauthorised person entered the ministry on May 28.

It said most of the government entities in Singha Durbar followed directives related to CCTV footage.

The panel said since record keeping was not systematic at Singha Durbar, it was not easy to conclude which visitor visited Singha Durbar for what purpose.

CPN-UML lawmaker Khagaraj Adhikari, who is a member of the panel, said UML lawmakers wrote a note of dissent saying that the 138-page report was incomplete as the panel failed to investigate call details of people under scanner. He told THT that the panel had to conduct polygraph test of suspected government officials and other people, but it prepared its report without completing those procedures.

The panel prepared its report after holding 23 meetings in 17 days. The panel had sought the Central Police Forensic Laboratory's help to retrieve the finance ministry CCTV footage of May 28 and May 29 after the ministry said the CCTV footage in question got deleted after 13 days.

The special parliamentary committee has stated in its report that the Nepal Police laboratory failed to retrieve all the digital data.

The HoR formed the panel after lawmakers of the main opposition CPN-UML created ruckus in the Parliament over the alleged entry of outsiders into the finance ministry on May 28.

A version of this article appears in the print on July 30, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.