The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Thursday filed a case in the Special Court against the then chief of Parbat Prison, Shila Shrestha, members of the bid evaluation committee for the construction of the kitchen, Bikash Adhikari, Harikrishna Sharma and Subhash Gharti, and Pradeep Timilsana, proprietor of Modikali Construction, which was awarded the construction contract, and awarded a fine of Rs 2.155 million.
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A corruption case has been filed against five people, including the then jailer of Parbat Prison, on charges of irregularities in the construction of a nursing home for prisoners serving their sentences and those detained during pretrial detention.
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a case in a special court on Thursday against the then chief of Parbat Jail Shila Shrestha, members of the bid evaluation committee for the construction of the kitchen, Bikash Adhikari, Harikrishna Sharma and Subhash Gharti, and the proprietor of Modikali Construction, Pradeep Timilsana, who was awarded the construction contract, by fixing a fine of Rs 2,155,735.
A fine, imprisonment and recovery of the embezzled amount have been demanded against jailer Shrestha as per the amount fixed. Separate fines and imprisonment have been demanded against the three members of the evaluation committee and contractor Timilsina as per the amount fixed, informed the CIAA's assistant spokesperson Ganesh Bahadur Adhikari.
The CIAA's charge sheet states that the contract was awarded in collusion with the engineer officer of the Intensive Urban and Building Construction Project Baglung, Nayab Subba Sharma of the Prison Office, Kusma Parbat, and Gharti, associate accountant of the Treasury and Accounts Control Parbat, and contractor Timilsina.
A cost estimate of Rs 6,372,394 was prepared to build a kitchen for prisoners in Parbat Jail for the fiscal year 2078/79. According to the Authority, a complaint was filed with the Authority alleging irregularities in the construction of the prison's kitchen block in the fiscal year 2078/079 in collusion with the Prison Office, the then Chief of Parbat Office, engineers and construction entrepreneurs.
A complaint was filed with the Authority after the contract was awarded to Modi Kali in collusion with the lowest bidder, Saurya Kiran Construction, which had submitted a bid of Rs 4,216,658, after the bid was published based on the approved cost estimate. During the investigation of the same complaint, it was revealed that irregularities were committed in the construction of the kitchen building in collusion with the jailer, bid evaluation committee and contractor.
The Authority also filed a case in the special court, fixing the difference between the lowest bid score and the contract amount awarded to the highest bidder.
‘The evaluation committee, with malicious intent, misinterpreted the bid submitted by Saurya Kiran Construction, which submitted the first low-estimated bid, making it ineligible for competition, and accepted the bid of Modikali Construction, which bid 0.02 percent lower than the office’s approved cost estimate, creating a fictitious basis to escape from the offense by creating a false premise that the contract would be invalid, with the intention of awarding the contract to the targeted construction entrepreneur, resulting in a difference of Rs 2.155 million and Rs 735 in the bid score of Saurya Kiran Construction, and illegal gain to the defendants,’ the charge sheet filed by the Authority states.
