Former finance minister Janardan Sharma has denied involvement of unauthorized persons in preparing the budget.
Speaking before the parliamentary special committee formed to investigate allegations of budget tampering against him on Thursday, he repeated the claims he made in the House and other places.
He advised the committee to ask security persons and marshals if the members did not belive his claims. "Unauthorized persons did not enter in budget preparations (sic). You can ask security persons and marshals if you don't believe me."
He expressed ignorance about the Finance Ministry's capacity to retain closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage. "Asking the experts about this would be better. I have never (unfairly) benefited anyone and will not do that even in the future."
He also reiterated his claims that Finance Ministry officials prepared the budget on the basis of established norms and values, and principles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
