Mahendranagar

A corruption case has been registered at the special court against nine office-bearers, including then Chief Administrative Officer of Bhimdutta Municipality. The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed the anti-graft case against them on Thursday.

The constitutional anti-corruption agency registered the case against then a chief administrative officer of Bhimdutta municipality Pushkar Prasad Bhatta, engineer Himalaya Singh Eir, accountant Govinda Raj Upadhyay, officer Subas Adhikari, non-gazetted officer Bishnudev Bhatta and Deependra Chaudhary, among others. In a charge sheet registered by the CIAA, it was noted that the case was filed against them for their direct involvement in causing loss to the state while soliciting bids for the extraction of river-based materials (stone, pebbles, sand, and gravel) in the fiscal year 2078/79 BS. They had worked to create unlawful benefits to the contractors, as stated in the charge sheet.

Bhimdutta municipality had misappropriated public revenue of Rs 54.3 million while signing the contract with Shree Bhawani Construction Pvt Ltd Kanchanpur on collecting revenue on extractives. It was noted in the charge sheet that then chief administrative officer Bhatta and accounts officer Upadhyay had committed financial irregularities of over Rs 19.5 million in the contract out process.