KATHMANDU: The Kathmandu District Court today arrested Achyut Prasad Rijal, a fine defaulter, who was convicted four years ago on charges of borrowing a hefty loan from the Nepal Bank by showing counterfeit documents.

A joint team of the Kathmandu District Court (KDC) staff and the police have arrested Rijal from Swambhu Chowk. He was absconding since four years after being convicted by the Special Court on the corruption case and was being searched for by the police in connection with the crime.

A three-member-bench comprising Top Bahadur Magar, Bhoopdhoj Adhikari and Damodar Prasad Sharma had then slapped him a fine of Rs 20.2 million responding to a corruption case lodged by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).

Chitra Bahadur KC, Chief, Verdict Implementation Section, KDC, told The Himalayan Times that Rijal was the main accused in the Nepal Bank default scam.

"We arrested him after he declined to submit in writing that he can not pay the fine. We also gave him the chance to pay the court awarded fine, but he didn't," Chitra Bahadur KC, Chief of Verdict Implementation Section, KDC, told this daily.

The CIAA then had accused him of cheating the Nepal Bank while taking a loan on the basis of forged documents. Rijal had shown two fake documents from Roshan Handicraft and Bagmati Wool-Tread Spinning Industry, to extract the loan.

Rijal defaulted the Bank through a nexus with the then bosses of the Bank, Sher Bahadur Thapa and Laxmi Prasad Acharya. The duo was prosecuted by CIAA.