DHARAN, June 2: Three former officials of BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), Dharan have been found to be involved in corruption.

A division bench of Special Court judges Balbhadra Bastola and Khushi Prasad Tharu, convicted former vice-chancellor of BPKIHS Prof Balabhadra Prasad Das, hospital director Prof Arbind Sinha and former registrar Nanda Kumar Thapa of corruption and sentenced them to jail along with fines.

According to Dipendranath Yogi, Deputy Registrar and Spokesperson for the Special Court, it was decided on Thursday that each of them will be imprisoned for one year and fined Rs 25,000 each. He said, "Three people have been sentenced to imprisonment and fined." The other five people accused of corruption have got clean chits.

Spokesperson Yogi added that those imprisoned and fined by the Special Court can knock on the door of the Supreme Court if they want to appeal.

According to spokesperson Yogi, former registrar of BPKIHS Tul Bahadur Shrestha, deputy registrar Amit Srivastav, accounting staff of the institution Nideshraj Dahal, businessmen Chetan Agarwal and Umesh Kumar Agarwal are among those who were acquitted by the court.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed a corruption case against the eight people in the special court on July 15, 2019. The  CIAA had filed charge sheets on various dates claiming corruption in the procurement of goods and services. The authority had filed charge sheets demanding the court to recover a sum of around Rs 160 million from the accused. CIAA had filed a case against the former Vice Chancellor Das on charges of embezzling an amount equivalent to Rs 40.8 million. Apart from this, the authority has filed another case in the special court against Das and his wife for having earned more than Rs 75 million illegally. Final verdict on the case is still pending.

Similarly, former hospital director Sinha was charged with embezzling Rs 37.5 million and former registrar Thapa of Rs 19.6 million.

 
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