KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 6
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against decisions of the Special Court in connection with three bribery cases.
The Special Court had given clean chits to the defendants of these three cases. In one case, the anti-graft body arrested Hukum Bahadur Oli, an officer of Cottage and Small Industry Office Banke, with bribe money in 2020.
According to the CIAA, Oli was arrested with Rs 96,000 in bribe that he had received from a service-seeker. He had accepted the bribe to facilitate the licensing process of a cottage industry.
Following rigorous investigation, the anti-graft body sued Oli at the Special Court, which, however, declared him innocent, citing that the alleged bribe money was provided to the service-seeker by the CIAA itself from the state fund to frame him. There was no solid evidence to substantiate that Oli had received the bribe.
In fact, the cash amount of Rs 96,000 was provided by the CIAA to the serviceseeker to hand it to Oli as bribe, the verdict of the Special Court reads. However, the CIAA said it was not satisfied with the decision of the Special Court and there were evidences, including audio-visual records of the bribe.
In yet another case, the CIAA had filed a chargesheet at the Special Court against Nayab Subba Shiva Shankar Mahato of the Department of Commerce and Supplies and Consumer Protection in 2020. The anti-graft body had accused Mahato of taking Rs 10,000 bribe. A team of the CIAA had arrested Mahato while taking the bribe from a service-seeker for a work related to the registration certificate of a business.
In response to the chargesheet filed against Mahato, the Special Court issued a verdict, saying that the act of offering a bribe money to them was a ploy to trap them because the cash was provided by CIAA officials themselves to hand it to Mahato.
Similarly, another appeal was about the clean chit given to Harichandra Thakur, a surveyor at Survey Office, Saptari. He was arrested with Rs 15,000 bribe that he had received from a service-seeker for land plotting.
The CIAA sued him with 'evidences'. However, he was held innocent.
The CIAA said sufficient evidences were produced to prove the defendants guilty.
The apex court will now hear the appeal filed by the CIAA against the Special Court decisions.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 7, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
