KATHMANDU, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's anti-graft apex body on Sunday filed a corruption case of over 100 million U.S. dollars at the Special Court against three persons including a senior government official on charges of embezzling revenue and settling taxes in a questionable way.
This is biggest ever corruption case in the history of the Himalayan nation, officials of the Commission for Investigation and Abuse of Authority said on Sunday.
Chudamani Sharma, a joint secretary of the Nepali government also serving as the member secretary of the Tax Settlement Commission, is the main accused in this case. Sharma was immediately suspended after the police took him into custody on June 2.
The other two accused are Tax Settlement Commission Chairman Lumba Dhoj Mahat and Commission's member Umesh Dhakal, who are still at large.
The trio are accused of embezzling revenue by exempting huge taxes of big businesses for mutual benefits when they were the office bearers of Tax Settlement Commission in 2015.
The commission on the charge-sheets filed against the accused stated that they have misappropriated nearly 100 million U.S. dollars (10.02 billion Nepali Rupees), according to a statement issued by the commission on Sunday.
Filing the case at the court, the commission has demanded imprisonment and fines in accordance with the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002 against the accused.
According to officials at the commission, over 1,000 files related to tax exemption are still under investigation.
The Tax Settlement Commission formed in February 2015 by the government, had landed into controversy after a report of the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) in April called into question the tax exemption of about 21 billion Nepali Rupees granted to various enterprises, according to a news report published in the Kathmandu Post.
