A case has been filed at the Kathmandu District Court against 22 individuals on charges of illegally auctioning the assets of Smart Cell.
The District Government Attorney’s Office, Kathmandu, filed the case on Wednesday against Jyoti Prakash Pandey, chief executive officer of Nepal Investment Mega Bank (NIMB), and 21 others.
Smart Cell had obtained a basic telephone service license from the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) on April 15, 2013. After failing to renew the license, it was automatically revoked effective April 16, 2023.
Following the revocation, the NTA took control of all of Smart Cell’s assets, telecommunications infrastructure, structures, telecommunications systems and network.
The accused are alleged to have acted dishonestly with the intention of depriving the government of its rights over the assets under NTA control.
They have been charged with fraud, organized crime, and offenses related to banks and financial institutions.
On May 4, the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers had sent the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) a report prepared by a study and investigation committee headed by former auditor general Tanka Mani Sharma Dangal concerning the purchase and sale of Ncell shares, directing the bureau to conduct the necessary investigation.
The NTA also appears to have requested the CIB to investigate the matter.
During the investigation, a woman who had rented out a five-and-a-half-storey building on several plots of land in Lalitpur in 2009 also filed a complaint. She alleged that despite renting out the property, she had still not received Rs 71.9 million in outstanding rent.
Who are the 22 defendants?
The case has been filed against Smart Telecom proprietors Sarvesh Joshi and Narendra Ulak; Transgate Tech Pvt Ltd proprietor Palina Shrestha; NIMB CEO Pandey; the bank’s Kalimati branch manager Bhashkar Narsingh Joshi; and Prithvi Bahadur Pande, chairman of the bank’s board of directors at its Durbar Marg office.
Other defendants include board officials Prajanya Rajbhandary, Kabi Kumar Tibrewala, Dipankar Shakya Udai, Shalik Ram Belbase, and Shobha Shrestha.
The case also names Khumnath Adhikari, proprietor of Professional Business Network; Satish Lal Acharya, chairman of Spectrolite and Ncell Axiata; Sachin Lal Acharya, 50, of Square Network Pvt Ltd; Shridhir Sariputta Hansa "Hans" Wijayasuriya; Tajikistani national Jabbor Kayumov; Chennai-based Thandalam Veeravalli Thirumala Chari; Sri Lankan national Amali Nanayakkara; and Bhavana Singh Shrestha Acharya.
The remaining defendants are Bhupendra Bhandari and Ncell directors Donald James Rae and Neo Hui Yu.
The case was filed listing five of the defendants as absent and the rest as absconding.
The government has also sought recovery of Rs 96.12 billion in alleged losses from the defendants.
