The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority on Monday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against Suresh Adhikari, suspended account officer of Itahari Transport Management Office, on the charge of illegally amassing property worth Rs51.03 million.

This is the second corruption case against Adhikari. Before this, the anti-graft body had found his involvement in a revenue embezzlement case along with seven other officers of  the transport office in June 2017.  

In its latest charge, the CIAA has accused Adhikari of amassing property and through illegal means. The commission said in a statement on Monday that Adhikari failed to disclose the sources of property worth Rs51.03 million possessed by him and his close relatives.

Investigation revealed that though Adhikari’s legal earning stood at Rs 8.83 million during his tenure in government service from October 2002 to May 2018, his expenditure and investment were to the tune of Rs 59.83 million.  

The anti-graft agency has named four of Adhikari’s wives—Durga Adhikari, Deepa Shrestha Adhikari, Susmita Adhikari and Som Maya Shrestha—his mother-in-law Puspa Kumari Niraula and his relative Balaram Sharma as defendants in the case. It has sought a penalty under the Section 20 (2) of Corruption Prevention Act as per which Adhikari, if convicted, could face a jail term for up to two years and have all his illegally-earned property confiscated.

As Adhikari has allegedly transferred the illegally earned property to the names of his close family members, the CIAA has sought confiscation of the property under the Section 47 of the same Act.

Adhikari had joined the government service in 2002 as a secretary of the erstwhile Tewang Village Development Committee in Rolpa where he worked until June 8, 2003, before working as an assistant (fourth level officer) in Nepal Telecom  from June 9, 2003 to April 1, 2009. Adhikari then joined the Bhojpur District Treasury Office as an accountant on April 12, 2009.

He was transferred to the Itahari Transport Management Office on April 3, 2011, until he and seven other officers were suspended on April 19, 2017 for allegedly misappropriating Rs 612. 12 million in revenue.

Besides Adhikari, the CIAA had charged Adhikari, Ramesh Prasad Dahal, Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Nayaraj Nepal, Kumar Bahadur Katuwal,  Tikaram Adhikari, Devraj Nepal and Rudra Prasad Dahal in the case filed on April 18, 2017. The eight accused officers had allegedly pocketed a large amount of revenue from mid-July 2014 to mid-February 2017 by creating various bank accounts.

According to the CIAA investigation, the office had collected Rs 657.11 million in the fiscal year 2014-15, but only Rs 617.79 million was deposited in the state coffers.

It was the largest ever revenue misappropriation case in the country’s history at the time. But soon this notorious distinction was taken over by another case filed by the anti-corruption watchdog against the members of Tax Settlement Commission in July 2017, including Director General of the Inland Revenue Department  Chudamani Sharma, for embezzling several billions of rupees.