The Morang District Court has announced the sentences for three individuals, including Tulasi Multipurpose Cooperative Chairman Kedarnath Sharma, who were found guilty of misappropriating the cooperative’s funds.
On Thursday, a bench of Judge Sita Sharma Adhikari sentenced Sharma to six years in prison. It also ordered recovery of the Rs 675.92 million misappropriated by him and slapped a fine of the same amount.
According to the district court’s registrar Mani Pokharel, the court also ordered Sharma to deposit Rs 27.04 million into the Victims’ Relief Fund.
The court sentenced the cooperative’s regional manager, Mandip Khawas, to two years and two months in prison, while also ordering him to pay Rs 2.7 million in damages and a fine of the same amount. He was also ordered to deposit Rs 108,000 into the Victims' Relief Fund.
Similarly, the cooperative’s secretary, Sabina Neupane, was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to deposit NPR 600 into the Victims’ Relief Fund.
Judge Adhikari’s bench found Sharma, Neupane, and Khawas guilty of embezzling the cooperative’s funds on Sunday.
Registered in 1995, Tulasi Multipurpose Cooperative was purchased by Kedarnath Sharma, a resident of Dang, in 2015. The cooperative, headquartered in Biratnagar, has branches in Damak (Jhapa), Gaighat (Udayapur), and Golbazar (Siraha).
Sharma, along with other officials and employees, were accused of misappropriating a large sum of depositors’ money from the cooperative.
On March 26, 2023, a case was filed at the Morang District Court against eight individuals on charges of embezzling over Rs 1.45 billion belonging to more than 21,000 depositors from the cooperative.
Six of them appeared in court while two are still absconding. Among those who appeared, the court acquitted the cooperative’s vice-chair, Anita Gautam, and board members Adityanath Bhattarai and Nirmala Pokharel.
All three convicted individuals have been in custody for pre-trial detention.
Sharma is also an accused in a misappropriation case involving Bhaktapur’s Shivashikhar Cooperative.
