Court remands Kist Bank CEO, manager to police custody on banking fraud case

ShareSansar, January 7:

Appellate Court Patan has remanded Chief Executive Officer of Kist Bank Limited Bal Narsingh Gharti and manager Pragun Shrestha to police custody, stating that preliminary investigation into banking fraud case hinted at their involvement in the scam.

Though the defendants’ attorney had pleaded for a general bail, the commerce bench at the Appellate Court sent them to the police custody, declining the bail.

The government had filed a case against Gharti and Shrestha alleging that they had issued a loan worth 16 crores, including the interest rate, to one Junko Publication for a plot of land in Bhaktapur that did not cost a faction of the loan amount, according to a report in today’s Nepal Samacharpatra.

According to sources, the scam is so serious that even some books published by that publication was accepted as a mortgage.

However, Manjay Raj Pandey and Komananda Adhikari, who were also made defendants in the case, have been released on a bail of Rs 5 lakh each.