Sunil Paudel, former executive director of the National Information Technology Center (NITC), has been sentenced to eight years and six months in prison in a bribery case.
The Special Court sentenced Paudel to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of accepting a bribe equivalent to US$280,000 during the procurement of security appliances and network equipment for the NITC. The amount is equivalent to Rs 30.85 million.
A bench comprising Judges Sudarshan Dev Bhatta, Hemanta Rawal, and Dilli Ratna Shrestha handed down the sentence on Thursday.
The court added another six months to Paudel’s sentence for accepting the bribe while serving as the NITC’s executive director.
The court also convicted Deepak Anand, an Indian national, of involvement in paying the bribe.
The court ordered each of the two convicts to pay a fine of Rs 15.42 million, representing an equal share of the total amount of Rs 30.85 million claimed against them.
They were also ordered to deposit Rs 617,008 into the Victim Relief Fund.
Although evidence was found showing that the two had discussed the transaction, the money itself could not be recovered.
The full text of the verdict has yet to be released.
Earlier, on Tuesday, July 14, the Special Court had sentenced Paudel to two-and-a-half years in prison for illegally amassing property while serving as managing director of Nepal Telecom.
The court sentenced him to two years for illegally amassing property and an additional six months for committing the offense while serving as managing director. It also ordered the confiscation of assets worth Rs 127.57 million.
The court further ordered that Rs 5.1 million be recovered from Paudel as compensation and deposited into the Victim Relief Fund.
On July 9, the Special Court acquitted all 18 defendants, including Paudel, in a corruption case related to the procurement of a billing system for Nepal Telecom.
The court said that it could not be established that the defendants had acted with malicious intent to cause unlawful loss to Nepal Telecom or to secure unlawful benefits for themselves.
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed the corruption case against Paudel and 17 others on June 8, 2025, claiming a loss of Rs 334.82 million.
Some other cases involving Paudel are still pending.
