Kathmandu, January 12
The Special Court today convicted former commissioner of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority Raj Narayan Pathak and one of the directors of Changunarayan-based Nepal Engineering College Lambodar Neupane in a corruption case.
According to Spokesperson for the court Dipendranath Yogi, the bench of Special Court Chair Shree Kanta Paudel and judges Yamuna Bhattarai and Balbhadra Bastola awarded three years and three-month jail sentence to Pathak and a fine of Rs 3.9 million. The court imposed a jail term of three years and a fine of Rs 3.9 million on Neupane. The court is yet to release the full text of the verdict.
Pathak was sentenced to three more months compared to Neupane as he committed the offence while holding a public post. The prevailing law imposes more punishment for corrupt public officers.
Till now Pathak was out on bail of Rs 7.8 million. He had posted bail of an amount equal to the amount he was accused of receiving as a kickback from Neupane for settling a corruption case investigated by the CIAA.
Gyanendra Jha, an acquaintance of Pathak, had told the CIAA that he was coerced into collecting Rs 7.8 million bribe money from Neupane and handing it over to Pathak.
The bribe was allegedly handed over by Jha to settle a corruption case lodged at the CIAA against a number of board members of Nepal Engineering College who had made "illegal" attempts to transform the public educational institution into a private one.
The CIAA had filed a corruption case against Pathak on 26 March 2019 after Jha told mediapersons and the CIAA that he was coerced by Pathak's brother Shubha Narayan to receive the bribe money from Neupane and hand it over to his brother Raj Narayan Pathak.
Jha used karateka Dhojman Moktan, who had won a gold medal in the 8th South Asian Federation Games, to shoot the video of his conversation with Pathak in a sting operation where Pathak is heard saying that he made a mistake by accepting the bribe. Yogi said the bench convicted Pathak and Neupane on the basis of audio visual and telephonic conversation details.
The CIAA investigated the case after Pathak resigned from his post in the face of corruption accusation.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 13, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
