The House of Representatives has extended the deadline of the parliamentary special probe committee formed to investigate budget tampering allegations against former finance minister Janardan Sharma by seven days.
Speaker Agni Sapkota announced during the House meeting on Thursday that the committee’s term has been extended by seven days.
The probe committee was formed on July 6 after Sharma was accused of inviting unauthorized persons to the Finance Ministry to change tax rates while preparing the budget on the night of May 28. Sharma resigned the same day.
Speaker Sapkota had given the committee 10 days from the day it started working to investigate the allegations and submit its report. The deadline was set to expire on Thursday, with the committee having started work on July 12.
The committee had sought additional time to reach a conclusion and submit its report. Lawmakers endorsed the proposal for deadline extension after Speaker Sapkota presented it in the House.
The committee questioned Sharma for three hours earlier on Thursday. Refuting the allegations against him, 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.
The committee has sent the hard drive 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. It has yet to receive a report from the lab.
Sharma has been accused of inviting unauthorized persons to the Finance Ministry to change tax rates at the time of finalizing the budget.
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.
Sharma 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.
