CPN-UML has demanded investigation on allegations of budget tampering against former finance minister Janardan Sharma through another powerful body claiming that the ruling coalition gave clean chit to Sharma curtailing the committee’s rights on the basis of majority.
The parliamentary special committee formed to investigate charges against Sharma submitted to Speaker Agni Sapkota the report on Friday concluding that unauthorized persons didn’t change tax rates in the budget for the current fiscal year.
UML lawmakers in the committee, however, put a nine-page dissenting opinion. Ruling lawmakers in the committee concluded that Sharma is innocent pointing that the evidence and statements collected do not prove that he is guilty while UML lawmakers were adamant that he cannot be deemed innocent on the basis of evidence and statements collected.
The 11-member committee has four members from CPN-UML, two each from Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Center), and one each from CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP) and Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (LSP).
UML has stated in its dissenting opinion that a bad precedent has been set by curtailing rights of parliamentary special committee. It has claimed that the committee’s jurisdiction was curtailed instead of determining whether the committee’s jurisdiction is judicial or policy-related pointing that there is risk of the committees to be formed by the House in the future becoming ineffective and ritualistic.
It has accused the Finance Ministry of lack of cooperation in investigation pointing that it did not act responsibly in keeping closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage safe that could have strongly proved whether unauthorized persons changed tax rates in the budget.
It has also accused the government of destroying evidence to ensure that Sharma is not found guilty. It has complained that ruling lawmakers prevented efforts to find the facts by rejecting use of call details and mobile location despite working procedure allowing that. It has also revealed that the ruling lawmakers obstructed use of polygraph test in the investigation.
Sharma was accused of inviting unauthorized persons to the Finance Ministry to tweak tax rates at the time of finalizing the budget on the night of May 28. He 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 after the 11-member parliamentary committee was formed to investigate allegations against him.
The forensic lab of Nepal Police recovered the Finance Ministry’s CCTV footage of May 28 and May 29 but the footage could not establish entry of unauthorized persons in the Finance Ministry.
Forensic experts told the committee that the quality of the Finance Ministry’s CCTV footage had deteriorated as they had transferred the videos to multiple devices in order to check them.
