Kathmandu, June 9 The Special Court today extended the custody of Director General of Inland Revenue Department Chudamani Sharma by six days. Sharma who faces charges of revenue embezzlement is in the custody of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority since last Friday. According to Registrar at the Special Court Bhim Kumar Shrestha, although the anti-graft body had sought to extend Sharma’s custody by a month, the court, however, extended his custody only by six days. Earlier the SC had granted CIAA seven-day custody of Sharma. Sharma faces charges of exempting taxes of big firms when he was a member of Tax Settlement Commission. The TSC had settled only 1,069 applications out of the 1,726 applications that it had received on long-pending tax disputes. Though the TSC had received applications to settle pending taxes worth Rs 30.5 billion, the commission had recovered taxes worth only Rs 9.5 billion from businesses whose taxes had been pending since long. PAC members had raised questions on why the TSC had been able to recover only Rs 9.5 billion. PAC members had charged TSC members with exempting big businesses from paying taxes for mutual benefit. Sharma repeatedly faced criticism for not fixing and collecting applicable capital gains tax involved in the deal of Ncell between Axiata and TeliaSonera. READ ALSO:

• Special Court extends Sharma's judicial custody by one week
• CIAA arrests IRD Director General Chudamani Sharma