Corruption case against 6 people including mayor and deputy mayor of Bagmati in Sarlahi

The Abuse of Authority Investigation Commission has fixed a fine of Rs 300 million 2934 thousand 897 against Mayor Thapa and Deputy Mayor Moktan along with the then chief administrative officer of the municipality Bimal Kumar Pokharel, chief planning engineer Sagar Paudel, then accounting officer Vishwaraj Pokharel and then head of District Coordination Committee Sarlahi Methur Chaudhary. A case was filed in the special court on Tuesday. The authority has demanded that all the accused should be charged separately. They have been accused of damaging public property under the cover of Bharat Lake construction.

According to Narahari Ghimire, the spokesperson of the authority, all the defendants including Mayor Thapa have been charged with 3 offenses of preparing a false document mentioned in section 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 2059, causing illegal damage in section 1, delivering and preparing a false report under section 19 .

Mayor Thapa has previously been suspended after the authority filed a corruption case against him on charges of illegal wealth acquisition on 28 Chait 2080 with a demand of 533353189 rupees. Thapa is a Maoist-elected mayor. Without going beyond the specifics of the said case, another case has been filed against the officials and employees of the municipality, including Thapa, for the crime of damaging public property by misusing their position.

A complaint was lodged with the authority regarding irregularities in the sale and distribution of river products such as stone, gravel, sand, etc., which were excavated during the construction of Bagmati Fish Pond First (Bharat Lake) in Ward No. 4 and 12 of the municipality .

While concluding the investigation, the authority has revealed that during the construction of the lake, the project was constructed within the Sagarnath Forest Development Project under the federal government and the fish pond was constructed illegally without any approval from the government of Nepal. For this, it is mentioned in the indictment of the authority that persons including Thapa prepared false documents for environmental impact assessment, forged the documents for that purpose and excavated 10 times more construction material than the limit set by the false assessment report.

According to the authority, the environmental impact assessment report made from a fake file also confirmed that only 500,000 cubic meters of construction material such as stone, gravel, and sand were allowed to be excavated during the construction of the lake. In this way, the construction of a multi-purpose fish pond was approved by the municipality by preparing a false document stating that the initial test report was approved for excavating stone gravel sand (forest produce) in excess of the prescribed amount and then showing that a detailed project report of the fish pond was prepared by the Bagmati Municipality. However, without getting approval of the master plan for this, 17 lakh 88 thousand 264 cubic meters from the forest area under the Sagarnath Forest Development Project from Fish Pond 1 and from Fish Pond-2 21 lakh 84 thousand 927 cubic meters and 7 lakh 52 thousand 143 cubic meters were sold from Bagmati Municipality and 47 lakh 25 thousand 200 cubic meters of material were found to have been excavated. In this embezzlement, the authority has demanded 300 million 29 lakh 34 thousand 897 rupees and has demanded a fine and imprisonment.