Appellate court upholds suspension of Bishal Bazaar board members

KATHMANDU Sept 23:

Patan Appellate Court on Sunday issued an interim order to suspend eight board members of Bishal Bazaar Company Ltd, including the chairman Rabindra Lal Shrestha, until final verdict.

A two-member bench of Judges Binod Sharma and Nityanand Pande issued the interim order responding to a writ petition filed by the eight board members. It also revoked a short-term decision issued by the court against suspending the board members.

The eight members had moved the appellate court after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) suspended them in a corruption case.

Joint Attorney General Gopi Chandra Bhattarai had pleaded on behalf of CIAA.

In their writ petition, the eight board members had demanded their suspension be lifted as they were not public office holders.

CIAA had registered a corruption case against the eight board members at the Special Court on June 6.  The constitutional anti-graft body had filed the case against Chairman Shrestha and board members Ashokjiv Tuladhar, Nirmal Kumar Dhanuka, Gautamlal Shrestha, Pramod Kumar Agrawal, Bhawaniraj Pandey, Bijaya Kumar Baniya and Basudev Bista for causing loss of Rs 97.4 million to the company.

According to the CIAA Act Article 17, accused are automatically suspended when corruption cases are filed against them at the Special Court.

The Special Court had released the eight members on bail after Chairman Shrestha (Rs 3 million) and seven members (Rs 2.5 million each) furnished the required bail amount.

The board members were found not provide shops as shares to three government offices --Nepal Food Corporation, Agricultural Inputs Company Limited and National Trading Limited, which jointly hold 34.41% stake in the company.

The company has a total of 869 shareholders. It operates a shopping complex in the government-owned land in New Road.

The eight board members were also found to have involved in financial irregularities while leasing out shops at the shopping complex. Of the total of 360 shops at Bishal Bazaar, 247 are run by non-shareholders.

Source: Republica