DHARAN, Dec 18: The CIAA has registered a corruption case at the Special Court against four persons including Tul Bahadur Shrestha, former registrar at Dharan-based BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS).
The CIAA has claimed that the four colluded to embezzle Rs 550,000 in BPKIHS funds. Shrestha has been accused of releasing the amount from the bank account of BPKIHS without any bill or voucher.
CIAA files graft case against ex-BPKIHS VC Balbhadra Prasad Das...
The others accused of corruption are chief of finance and administration Rupa Singhanchi Agrawal, and clerks Chandra Kumar Magar and Ramesh Kumar Khatiwada.
According to the CIAA the sitting officials facing the corruption charge are automatically suspended.
CIAA has found that former registrar Shrestha had on May 6 released the payment through a check to Jeevan Paudel, a resident of Tanahun, without receiving any bill or voucher. The check was cashed at NIC Asia Bank in Indrapur, Morang.
Although the check bears the signature of former registrar Shrestha and chief of finance and administration Rupa Singhanchi Agrawal, both of them claimed that they never signed the check and their signatures were forged. BPKIHS learnt about the issue only in June and had started internal investigation. After a complaint was filed, the CIAA had started its own investigation into the issue.
Interestingly, when the CIAA was still investigating into the case, Rs 550,000 was again credited to the bank account of the BPKIHS. Meanwhile, another similar case of embezzlement has happened in BPKIHS. After a total of Rs 480,000 was debited from the account of BPKIHS at Sunrise Bank, police have detained two MBBS students and two staffers of the bank for investigation.
