KATHMANDU, JUNE 23
In one of the biggest graft scams, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority today filed a charge-sheet against three office-bearers of the erstwhile Tax Settlement Commission at the Special Court for their alleged involvement in misappropriating tax revenue worth hundreds of millions of rupees.
Those booked by the anti-graft body for corruption are TSC's former chairman Lumba Dhwaj Mahat and members Umesh Prasad Dhakal and Chudamani Sharma. Sharma was also the director general at the Department of Revenue Investigation when the Nepali government suffered a huge revenue loss.
A press release issued by the CIAA said the trio were found to have committed revenue leakage to the tune of approximately Rs 1.332 billion by signing tax settlement agreements with taxpayers with a mala fide intention in contravention of the Tax Settlement Commission Act and a notified order published in the Nepal Gazette on 5 February 2015.
Joint Secretary Narayan Prasad Risal, who is also the spokesperson for the CIAA, said Mahat, Dhakal, and Sharma had gone beyond the jurisdiction set by the notified order and the act of entering into tax settlement pacts with taxpayers to exempt them from taxes worth approximately Rs 1.0033 billion.
Risal said the probe had found that office-bearers of the erstwhile TSC had failed to perform their duties and responsibilities in good faith and had colluded to grant tax exemption to tax payers to serve their personal interest flouting legal provisions.
According to the anti-graft body, the trio has been charged under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, seeking a fine equivalent to the amount in question and a jail sentence of 10 years for each.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 24 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
