The parliamentary special committee formed to investigate charges of budget tampering against former finance minister Janardan Sharma is set to seek an extension to its deadline.
The deadline extension process has been moved forward as the 10 days given to the committee were not sufficient for investigation, said the committee’s chair Laxman Lal Karna.
“We have decided to request an extension to the committee’s deadline. There’s still work to be done for investigation,” Karna told Setopati.
The Speaker will have to present the committee’s deadline extension proposal in the House of Representatives for decision. The committee’s deadline will be extended after the House passes the proposal.
The committee has sent the hard disk containing the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the Finance Ministry to the forensic lab of Nepal Police to recover the deleted footage of May 28 and May 29.
The committee needs more time to reach a conclusion as it has also not received any report from the lab yet, said the committee’s secretary Surendra Aryal.
The probe committee questioned Sharma during its meeting on Thursday. Sharma expressed ignorance about the Finance Ministry's capacity to retain CCTV footage and suggested that the committee consult experts on the matter.
He also advised the committee to ask security persons and marshals if the members did not believe his claims.
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 on the night of May 28 and changed tax rates.
He courted another controversy when the Finance Ministry, responding to a right to information (RTI) request seeking 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 to 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.
