KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court on Sunday has asked for corruption case file registered at the Special Court against suspended Director General of Inland Revenue Department, Chudamani Sharma.

A full bench of Justice Deepak Raj Joshi, Deep Kumar Karki, Kedar Prasad Chalise, Sarada Prasad Ghimire and Anil Kumar Sinha issued the order to this efect while conducting a hearing  on a  habeas corpus  filed by Sharma's wife Kalpana on July 11, 2017, said  deputy Spokesperson of the SC Bishwa Raj Paudel.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has arrested Sharma on June 2 and kept him in its custody with the permission of the Special Court to investigate into the complaints lodged aganist erstwhile Tax Settlement Commission- of which Sharma was an office bearer.

However, Kalpana has filed a habeas corpus petition demanding the court order to release her husband stating Sharma has been illegally held in a custody by the CIAA and the anti graft body did not have the right to investigate the TSC decision- of which Sharma and Dhakal were the members and Mahat a chairperson.

Meanwhile, the anti graft body filed corruption charge-sheets against Sharma including two others on July 16.

Earlier, a divisional bench of Justice Cholendra Shumsher JBR and Prakash Raut had stayed the corruption case against Sharma  and sent it to a full bench on July 19.

The other accused are Lubma Dhoj Mahat and Umesh Prasad Dhakal who are still at large. Sharma,  Mahat and Dhakal have been accused of embezzling Rs 10.2 billion revenue by exempting huge taxes of big businesses for mutual benefits when they were the office bearers of Tax Settlement Commission 2015.

If convicted, Sharma, Mahat and Dhakal could face imprisonment for eight to 10 years and would also have to pay double the amount they embezzled.

It has been learnt that the Commission could file additional cases of corruption against the three accused if it found

more incriminating evidences in the course of investigation. The CIAA has opened only 60 cases and has scores of other files to investigate.

The TSC had settled only 1,069 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.

Members of the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament had wondered 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.