According to under secretary at the Special Court, Keshav Prasad Ghimire, a three-member bench of the Special Court judges headed by chairman Kedar Prasad Chalise and members Mohan Raman Bhattarai and Bhupendra Prasad Rai issued the order after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) urged the court to provide more time for investigation into the case. [break]
The CIAA had arrested the 10 NEA officials on Sunday.
The anti-graft body had arrested NEA director Arjun Kumar Chauhan, retired co-director Shashi Bikram Thapa, deputy director Mahesh Kumar Karki, former general manager Yugal Kishor Sah, manager Hari Bahadur Gaashi, assistant manager Nimesh Kumar Pokharel, electrical engineer Rambijul Mandal and engineer Suraj Prasad Sah.
The CIAA had earlier arrested around two dozen officials, including NEA Managing Director Rameshwar Yadav, on the charge of their involvement in the transformer scam. CIAA has already filed cases at the Special Court against the accused NEA officials, the Chinese supplier and its local representatives.
The CIAA had started investigations after many of the Chinese transformers exploded and it was found that power leakage increased as the transformers were substandard. A three-member probe committee formed earlier by NEA on the issue had found that around 1,275 transformers purchased from Hubei Sunlight Electric Co Ltd, China were of inferior quality.
NEA´s tests in its lab and other labs had shown that the transformers had aluminum wires instead of copper wires.
According to the CIAA, those arrested Sunday were also involved in procuring substandard transformers but from a different supplier.
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