SC summons Khadka to face graft charge

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: Now it’s former home minister and Nepali Congress leader Khum Bahadur Khadka’s turn to face graft charge at the Supreme Court.

A division bench of the apex court today summoned Khadka to defend charges of accumulating disproportionate wealth when in power.

Stating that the Special Court verdict of 2006 giving him a clean chit could change, the bench said the court had not evaluated Khadka’s sources of income and evidences properly while acquitting him.

In 2002, the CIAA had prosecuted Khadka on the charge of accumulating Rs 23.6 million through misuse of power from 1991 to 2002. The bench said the sources of income that Khadka produced were not lawful and needed thorough examination.

The Special Court had acquitted Khadka even though it held he could not produce sufficient evidence to justify his sources of income amounting to Rs Rs 1.25 million. “Khadka has to attend the the apex court 15 days after receiving the order,” Hemanta Rawal, the apex court spokesperson said.

The bench questioned the Special Court’s clean chit in relation to Rs 3.6 million, specifically, the legality of Rs 1.4 million Khadka received from Jitendra Lal Shrestha through an informal deed; the 70 per cent he received from the amount for foreign trips; and bank deposits of Rs 1.5 million in 1997 and Rs 1 million in 1999 in his wife Sheela Sharma Khadka’s account in Everest Bank. The apex court also questioned Rs 5 million paid by Khadka’s personal assistant to Sudha Acharya, the sister-in-law of the former minister while purchasing her house and the income from his agricultural land without deducting expenses.

Even though the Special Court said Khadka had failed to prove his sources of income amounting to Rs 1.25 million, it had issued him a clean chit stating it was improper to see 8.21 per cent of the total income as disproportionate.

Pleading for the CIAA, prosecutor Krishna Paudel said the clean chit was unfair and the case had to be reopened.

Upcoming high profile hearings

• Achyut Krishna Kharel, Ex-IGP, March 29

• Motilal Bohara, Ex-IGP, March 29

• Ramagya Prasad Chaturvedi, Ex -NAC chief, April 4

• Sher Bahadur Thapa,

Ex-Nepal Bank Limited chief, April 5