JANAKPURDHAM: The Special Court has convicted five people, including the former chairperson and executive director of the Greater Janakpur Area Development Council (GJADC), for corruption.

Those found guilty of corruption charges include GJADC former chairman Deegambar Raya, executive directors Suryadev Saha and Rajesh Kumar Saha, Non-gazetted First Class Officer Usha Mishra, and Accountant Uttam Raj Sharma Dhakal.

A bench comprising of Special Court judges Shaligram Koirala and Balabhadra Banstola handed down the verdict convicting them of corruption. The bench decided that out of the eight projects undertaken with the cooperation of the Government of India which were contracted out, five were found mired in irregularities.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on November 1, 2018, filed a case against 10 persons on the charge of committing irregularities while contracting out various projects.

The Special Court has given clean chit to five out of 10 persons indicted in the case. The Court arrived at the conclusion that the Tender Evaluation Committee formed by the Council had ill-intentionally recommended the number of cost estimates while making evaluations of various projects on different dates.

It is found that some of the tenders were not even included in the evaluation process citing that these tenders were not valid as they have proposed much lower prices than the 30 percent marks compared to the estimated score.

CIAA had filed a corruption case against 10 people, arguing that the Council suffered a loss of over Rs 6 million 288 thousand due to this reckless evaluation and acceptance of tenders. It also found that some tenders were accepted by altering the unit cost in the contract agreements for various construction materials.

The CIAA also claimed that the Council incurred an additional Rs 985 thousand loss due to this and irregularities worth Rs 354 thousand in another project. The anti-graft body had filed cases claiming more than Rs 7 million 628 thousand as the misappropriated amount.

The penalty against the five people convicted in this case would be determined on April 11, the Court said.