Ganesh Man Gurung, former chairperson of the University Grant Commission, said the court verdict has proven that the CIAA's action was premature and aimed at tarnishing the image of the officials.
"The CIAA's premature action victimized the officials. Who will now compensate the officials for the disgrace?" questioned Gurung who now heads the education subcommittee of the Constituent Assembly.
Six others to get clean chit from the court are then registrars Niraj Pandey, Shyam Katuwal, Shambhu Koirala, Mohan Bahadur Basnet, Shubha Narayan Pathak, and Rajesh Kumar Jha who were accused of corruption while granting affiliation to colleges that did not meet the university standards.
But the division bench dismissed the charges stating that the case lacked adequate evidence to establish the officials' involvement in granting affiliation to private colleges.
"The trend of corruption was established by the former VC Ram Awtar Yadav, who was infamous during his tenure at the PU authority," said Bhola Pokhrel, coordinator of the committee formed by the Ministry of Education (MoE) in 2012 to make recommendations over revival of PU.
During inquiry, the committee had recovered a bill signed by Yadav that showed a transaction of Rs 9.5 million with an unidentified organization.
Submitting a report on PU's status, Pokhrel-led committee had pointed out irregularities and persons involved in it. However, those former officials have been avoiding investigations.
"The action against top level officials did not help root out corruption in the university. The main accused, as recommended in the report, are nowhere in the sight," said Pokhrel.
After several attempts, Shrestha told Republica over phone that he plans to meet the Prime Minister who is the chancellor's of the university.
"I am consulting my friends on whether not I should reclaim the position," said Shrestha, who is also the professor of economics and former member of the National Planning Commission.
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