KATHMANDU, JUN 28 -
The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday handed down a nine-month sentence on former chief of Mechi Customs Keshar Jung Khadka and ordered confiscation of property worth Rs 3.2 million.
The Special Court had sentenced Khadka in April 2005 to a year in prison and ordered confiscation of property worth Rs 2.5 million. The SC reversed the Special Court’s decision, reducing the jail time, while increasing the fine. However, the apex court said that since Khadka had already served four months, the period would be deducted from the new term. A bench of Justices Kalyan Shrestha and Bharat Bahadur Karki took serious exception to the “miscalculation” on the part of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the anti-graft body. The bench said the CIAA, in its charge sheet, had calculated the exchange rate of the US dollar in July 1993 at Rs 77, but records from the Nepal Rastra Bank showed the rate of the dollar at that time was Rs 49.
The SC bench upheld the decision taken by the CIAA concerning Khadka’s source of income through foreign junkets. Citing precedent in a case related to Ramagya Chaturvedi and Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta, the court said that of the allowances generated in foreign junkets, only 30 percent had been spent, while the remaining 70 percent was saved. This, the court declared, could be considered part of their “income”.
The CIAA had challenged the income declared by Khadka as earned through allowances in foreign junkets. The division bench on Wednesday also ordered confiscation of property owned by Khadka and his family members and cash deposited in various banks. Additionally, the bench ordered confiscation of Rs 1.2 million found in Khadka’s home. However, the bench directed the release of the Rs 3.7 million bank guarantee that Khadka had deposited in 2005, but only after obtaining the new fine and the completion of the jail term.
Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/06/28/capital/sc-reverses-spl-court-ruling-on-ex-official/356270/
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