KATHMANDU, Jan 22: Former governor of Nepal Rastra Bank, Tilak Rawal, has posted bail of Rs 1 million as demanded by the Special Court to evade arrest.

After the preliminary hearing over charges filed against Rawal, who has been accused of being involved in financial irregularities while printing polymer note about a decade ago, the Special Court had ordered the police authority either to seek Rs 1 million bail from the accused or to take him under judicial custody.

The ex-NRB chief opted to pay the bail amount and was set free from the court premises, according to Special Court Spokesperson Bhim Shrestha.

On December 21, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed a corruption case against Rawal, Upendra Keshari Poudyal, the then note department chief of the central bank, and Himalaya Bahadur Pande, a local agent of the Australian company which was handed the responsibility of printing the notes.

In its charge sheet filed at the Special Court, the anti-graft body had demanded a fine of Rs 9,109,889 to each of those accused in the note printing scam.

The CIAA has accused three persons including Rawal of bribing Note Printing Australia to print sub-standard notes for higher cost price in order to pocket the difference. The anti-graft body has stated that the bank officials had received a sample of the notes printed from the Australian firm before making the final decision.
The bank officials and the note printing company had exchanged several rounds of correspondence before finalizing the deal. 

The bank officials and local agents are also accused of arranging a Bangkok junket for journalists covering the banking sector with the intent of preventing negative media coverage of the faulty note printing tender.
CIAA investigations have claimed that the bank officials had increased the printing cost by four Australian dollars per 1,000 notes. 

The NRB had awarded Note Printing Australia, an Australian Central Bank subsidiary, to print 100 million copies of Rs 10 denomination in 2002.

 
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