The parliamentary special committee formed to investigate allegations of budget tampering against former finance minister Janardan Sharma has sought software to restore closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage after the Finance Ministry did not provide footage.
"The technicians at the ministry did not answer anything apart from saying they don't have capacity. We have sought software after they did not provide answers," a lawmaker in the probe committee told Setopati. "They have said that they don't have capacity to keep footage for more than 12-15 days. We will see if they have deleted the footage or refused to provide."
There are accusations that former nayab subba (non gazetted first class employee of the government) Raghunath Ghimire and others had gone to the ministry at the time of finalizing the budget May 28 night and changed tax rates.
The Home Ministry’s guidelines about installation and operation of CCTV requires footage of CCTV cameras be kept safe for at least three months and adds that the district administration office concerned can investigate about the CCTV footage.
The footage of May 28, therefore, should be kept safe at least until August 28.
Sharma has been accused of inviting unauthorized persons to the Finance Ministry to change tax rates at the time of finalizing the budget. He has denied the allegations.
He courted another controversy when the Finance Ministry, responding to a right to information (RTI) request seeking closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage of the night before the budget presentation, said that it does not have CCTV footage of more than 13 days.
Sharma resigned on July 6 to facilitate investigation over the allegations but Finance Secretary Madhu Marasini and Revenue Secretary Krishna Hari Pushkar have been reporting for duty.
They are also under investigation as they led the staffers in preparations of the budget and were also present when the unauthorized persons allegedly entered the ministry.
