Kathmandu, July 7: The Special Court has convicted three former officials of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) in the Teramocs procurement corruption case while acquitting former Communications Minister Mohan Bahadur Basnet and 16 others.
A bench comprising judges Hemanta Rawal, Dilliratna Shrestha and Umesh Koirala found former NTA Chairman Digambar Jha, along with former board members Dhanraj Gyawali and Tika Upreti, guilty of corruption.
The court sentenced all three to six months in prison and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each. Jha received an additional six-month jail term, taking his total sentence to one year.
The court, however, cleared 17 other defendants, including former Communications Minister Basnet, former NTA Chairman Purushottam Khanal, directors Dipesh Acharya, Achyutananda Mishra and Surendra Lal Hada, as well as several other officials, suppliers and the local representative of the company involved in the procurement process.
The verdict brings an end to one of the country’s high-profile corruption cases linked to the procurement of the Teramocs system, with only three of the 20 accused found guilty.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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