Kathmandu, April 5:

Issuing a final verdict today, the Supreme Court gave clean chits to former ministers Padma Sundar Lawoti, Dan Bahadur Shahi and former assistant minister Sinet Shrestha in a corruption case.

A division bench of justices Kedar Prasad Giri and Arjun Prasad Singh issued the verdict, upholding an eight-year-old verdict of the Patan Appellate Court, which had absolved them of any wrongdoing.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had accused them of gobbling Rs 11.8 million while importing about 19,000 ton of agriculture fertiliser some eight years ago.

The CIAA had moved the SC against the Appellate Court verdict. While Lawoti was the Minister of Agriculture, Shahi was the secretary of the Ministry back then. The bench said the CIAA had no authority to appeal under the previous Act. It observed that the previous Act did not give the CIAA the authority to appeal on any case in a court of law. The Supreme Court has established precedents on cases of CIAA vs DB Lama and CIAA vs Lokman Singh Karki, the bench observed.