Kathmandu Post

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Court slaps six-month jail term on loan defaulters

KATHMANDU, APR 25 -
The Special Court on Monday slapped six-month jail term on Thakur Pratap Thapa and Jeevan Bista, owners Silver Fiber Textile Mills based in Gaindakot, Nawalparasi, for not repaying loans of the Employees Provided Fund (EPF). However, Bista should not serve the jail sentence as he has already passed away.

The court also ordered the mills owners to deposit Rs 196.81 million—equivalent to the amount of loss caused to EPF—and deposit the amount in EPF’s amount. They had taken loans worth Rs 100 million from the consortium of EPF and Nepal Bangladesh Bank in the name of modernising and uplifting the mills’ capacity. Saying that the factory owners had taken loans by submitting false audit documents which showed that the factory was in profit even though it was in loss, the court confirmed that they committed offence as per the provision 8 of the Corruption Control Act-1960.

A full bench of SC Chairman Gauri Bahadur Karki and justices Om Prakash Misra and Kedar Prasad Chalise also slapped six-month jail term on Kishore Baskota, financial advisor of the mills who helped it produce false audit documents.

Audit documents of fiscal years 1997-98 and 1998-99 showed that the mill was clearly in loss. Baskota was involved in five meetings on the loan deal, according to the court.

The court, however, gave clean chit to other defendants including officials of EPF and Nepal Bangladesh Bank. One of the defendants Dinesh Nath Chalise, who had made assessment of the project, was acquitted as he did not prepare the assessment report for the loan deal.

The court also acquitted Nepal Bangladesh Bank officials Narendra Bhattarai, Balkrishna Sharma and Ujjwal Panday, who had prepared the project appraisal report. “Their ill-intention could not be proved in the loan deal as they had prepared the project appraisal report on the basis of fake documents produced by the loanees,” the court said.

EPF officials getting clean chit include Rajesh Raj Karnikar, Sashi Bikram Rana, Laxmi Prasad Shrestha, Vijaya Kumar Shrestha and Ravi Bhusan Vaidya. They had recommended for loan approval on the basis of the audit report, feasibility study and project appraisal report.

The EPF board had provided Rs 55 million short-term loans and Rs 45 million long-term loans without following these EPF officials’ recommendations, according to the court. The court said the immediate board members could not be convicted as they were not defendant in the case.

Last Thursday, the same court had slapped one-year jail term on promoters of Maganturam Group for defaulting loans of Rastriya Banijya Bank and ordered them to pay Rs 1.37 billion for causing losses to the bank.

Posted on: 2011-04-26 09:22

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