Kathmandu, April 5: An appeal has been filed at the Supreme Court against the Special Court verdict acquitting 21 individuals including Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) lawmaker and former minister Bikram Pandey of corruption during the construction of the national pride Sikta Irrigation Project.
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed an appeal at the apex court challenging the Special Court verdict on Tuesday, according to a Supreme Court official.
The Special Court had given a clean chit to all 21 individuals in a corruption case on June 20 last year.
CIAA had filed a corruption case against them at the Special Court on December 7, 2018, alleging embezzlement of Rs 2.13 billion during the construction of the project.
The accused included Pandey, chairman of the construction company Kalika Construction; project chiefs Sarba Dev Prasad, Saroj Chandra Pandit, Dilip Bahadur Karki, Ramesh Basnet; nine chief divisional engineers of the project; three engineers with the Department of Irrigation; the managing director of Kalika Construction; and three other engineers.
CIAA had accused the contractor company and the chiefs and engineers of the irrigation project of financial irregularities in violation of the contract.
The project was supposed to irrigate a large area of Banke district. But the main and tertiary canals were heavily damaged after releasing the water in these canals.
