Kathmandu, February 9

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the decision of the Special Court in connection with a corruption case.

The Special Court had recently given clean chit to defendants in a corruption case involving 11 persons, including six employees of the Office of the Company Registrar at the Special Court. Among those facing corruption charges are OCR deputy registrars Gangadhar Paudel and Dharmaraj Rokaya, assistant registrars Narayan Prasad Pokharel and Umeshman Joshi, and computer operators Ashish Maharjan and Pushpakala Rai, while their alleged accomplices include Jeet Bahadur Magar, Rajan Prasad Lamsal, Punya Prasad Kharel, Niraj Kumar Manandhar and Prakash Bikram Mishra.

The chargesheet was filed by the CIAA against them at the Special Court on 27 November 2018 for their alleged involvement in illegal ownership transfer of immovable property worth around Rs 700 million. OCR officials had allegedly transferred property ownership of Shankar Electrical Industries Pvt Ltd to someone else without the presenceof Ram Niranjan Jatiya, the only shareholder and promoter of the company.

The anti-graft body had sought punishment of imprisonment for a term from three months to one year, and a fine from Rs 10,000 to 50,000 against the OCR officials under Section 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002. However, the Special Court in its verdict said the OCR officials were not involved in causing any loss or damage to the complainant. 'Though OCR officials seemed to have made a legal error, they did not have mala fide intention to harm the complainant and reap unauthorised benefits,' an excerpt of the verdict reads.

After the Special Court gave a clean chit to six OCR officials, the remaining six persons charged as accomplices were also automatically proven innocent in the case.

The CIAA was not satisfied with the decision of the Special Court and filed an appeal at the apex court seeking to overturn the verdict of the lower court, the CIAA said in a press release.

The anti-graft body also claimed that sufficient evidences were produced to prove the defendants guilty.

The apex court will now hear the appeal filed by the CIAA against the Special Court decision.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 10, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.