The corruption case involving the purchase of substandard transformers at the Nepal Electricity Authority has been scheduled for final hearing in the Supreme Court.

The hearing has been going on continuously since Bhadra 12 in the bench of Justices Abdulal Aziz Musalman and Meghraj Pokharel. The case, which is being looked into, has been scheduled for presentation on Sunday.

The Supreme Court has started the final hearing in this dispute after 8 years. This case, which was registered in the Supreme Court on Kartik 27, 2074, had been heard only once before.

This case had been presented in one bench after another but had not been heard. This case had previously been presented on Bhadra 23. On that day, arguments were also held in the Supreme Court. The entire file in the court was burnt on Bhadra 24. After that, the Supreme Court is going to hold the final hearing after receiving the file.

On Falgun 9, 2074, the bench of Justices Vishwambhar Prasad Shrestha and Bam Kumar Shrestha had ordered the parties to withdraw the case. Then in Bhadra 2082 The Supreme Court is going to hear the case that has only been filed continuously and conclude it. The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority had filed a case in the Special Court in Falgun 2070. The Authority had filed the case in two phases at that time.

The Authority had initially filed a corruption case in the Special Court against the then Executive Director Dr. Jivendra Jha and the then General Managers Rameshwor Yadav and Yugal Kishore Sah and 18 others.

In the second phase, the Authority had filed a case against foreign agents and other employees of the Authority. The Authority had claimed that the state had caused a loss of Rs 500 million by importing substandard transformers and demanded that the amount be recovered.

After irregularities were found in the purchase of transformers, the Authority had registered four cases in the Special Court on Bhadra 9 and 28, 2070 against 60 people, including employees of the Authority and supplier companies.

Delivering the verdict in the case, the special court had found 25 people, including the top leadership of the NEA and foreigners, guilty on Chaitra 17, 2073 and ordered to recover 460 million from them.

20 employees, including the then two chief executive directors of the NEA, were found guilty. Similarly, five people from Chinese and Thai companies supplying transformers were also found guilty. The special court had ordered to recover more than 463 million rupees as fine from those found guilty.

The Authority had started an investigation after transformers brought from India, China and Thailand started exploding.

What was the incident?

In the fiscal year 2066/67, the Authority's charge sheet mentioned that corruption was committed in the purchase of 1,567 transformers through a subsidiary company, Thailand. The Authority had demanded that those involved in the purchase of transformers be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

On November 1, 2008, the Authority's charge sheet claimed that the bid was accepted in violation of the standards while signing the transformer purchase agreement and that only transformers with half the capacity of the weight agreed upon by the supplier were found to be technically compatible, thus committing corruption by using copper wires of lesser weight and size with malicious intent.

The Authority had asked the Authority to recover the direct loss of Rs 179.652 million paid for the transformer purchased by the Authority itself, Rs 274.187 million due to leakage and Rs 138.23 million due to delay in supply by 130 days, and Rs 138.23 million due to direct loss of Rs 467.663 million.

The charge sheet also mentioned that the amount of the compensation was increased because the Authority took advantage of the legal provision that allows it to recover up to double the amount of compensation for the amount of corruption and claimed to get the amount from the contractor and the accused.

The Authority had also registered a case in the special court against the employees of the Authority, along with the Managing Director of the affiliated Electric Company, Prepat Janat Rangsri, the authorized representative of the contractor, Rajan K Bhatta, and the Chairman of Nepal Agent Company Apex Marketing Pvt. Ltd. Binod Kumar Manandhar in the procurement process. But apart from Prepat, others were acquitted.

Eight people arrested in the case of purchasing 1,995 substandard transformers from China's Huawei Sunlight Electric Company in 2067/68 were also involved in the case of transformers purchased by the affiliated company. The Authority had arrested 10 others in the case of transformers purchased by the affiliated company. A double case was filed against eight officials of the Authority. They were involved in the transformers purchased by the affiliated company and were also involved in the transformers purchased through China's Huawei, which was previously filed by the CIAA.

The then Executive Director Dr. Jivendra Jha, the then General Manager and outgoing Executive Director Rameshwar Yadav, and the then General Manager Yugal Kishore Sah were made defendants in all four cases. Similarly, the then employees Manager Kailash Kumar Atal, Joint Director Hari Bahadur Pal, Accounts Officer Suresh Kumar Katuwal, Assistant Accounts Officer Sushil Khanal, Central Store Chief and Engineer Narayan Chaudhary, and Store Assistant Saroj Shrestha were also double-charged.

The CIAA had filed a case in the special court alleging corruption worth Rs 467.663 million towards the affiliated company and Rs 418.40 million towards Huawei.

These are the convictions

The special court had sentenced the then Executive Director Yadav to a fine of Rs 135,000 and 3 years and 5 months imprisonment, while another Executive Director Jha to a fine of Rs 80,000 and 1 year and 2 months imprisonment. A bench of Justices Mohan Raman Bhattarai, Narendra Kumar Shiwakoti and Mahesh Kumar Pudasaini had decided to recover the fine along with the amount.

The special court had sentenced Executive Director Yadav to 1 year and 6 months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 in the first case, 4 months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 15,000 in the second case, 7 months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 30,000 in the third case, and 1 year and 40,000 in the fourth case.

Another Executive Director Jha was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 25,000 in the first case, 4 months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 40,000 in the second case, and 4 months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 15,000 in the third case. The court had acquitted Jha in one case.

Similarly, the special court had sentenced Yugal Kishore Sah to a fine of Rs 95,000 and one year and seven months in prison, Kailash Prasad Atal to a fine of Rs 30,000 and eight months in prison, and Chiranjeevi Sharma Poudel to four months in prison and a fine of Rs 15,000.

Other employees found guilty in the transformer case were Madan Raj Chapagain, Prajwal Pandey, Sendhu Yadav, Bharat Kumar Sah, Surendra Paneru, Surendra Raj Joshi, Shekhar Kumar Dutt, Manoj Baral, Bidur Poudel, Suraj Prasad Sah, Ram Bijul Mandal, Binod Kumar Swarnakar, Nimesh Kumar Pokharel, Ashtaratna Shakya and Tripurari Prasad Singh. The special court had sentenced them to three months in prison and a fine of Rs 15,000 each.

The special court had also convicted five people from the Chinese and Thai companies that supplied the transformers. The special court had fined Li Dao Jiu 214 million 2374 rupees, sentenced Hu Zheng Jing to 2 years in prison, and sentenced Hu Ji Qi to one year in prison. The special court had sentenced other foreigners, Hu Yong to one year in prison and a fine of 587 million 79603 rupees, and Ou Yang to 587 million 79603 rupees.