KATHMANDU: The Special Court has convicted five individuals, including former Executive Director of the National Information Technology Center (NITC) Sunil Paudel, in a corruption case related to the procurement of high-performance computing equipment.
A bench comprising Chairperson Sudarshan Dev Bhatta and members Hemanta Rawal and Dilliratna Shrestha convicted Paudel, NITC Director Safal Shrestha, Assistant Director Ramesh Pokhrel, Computer Engineer Ram Sharan Gayak, and World Distribution Nepal Pvt. Ltd. Chairman and Managing Director Arun Shrestha.
The court sentenced each of them to three months in prison and a fine of Rs 10,000. Paudel was given an additional three-month jail term.
The court found Arun Shrestha, who supplied the equipment, guilty of acting as an accomplice in the offense committed by the main defendants. The court also ordered World Distribution Nepal Pvt. Ltd. to pay a fine of Rs 10,000.
The court has ordered all convicted individuals to deposit Rs 400 each as compensation fees into the Victim Relief Fund.
However, NITC Accounts Officer Nim Bahadur Woli was acquitted. The court stated that Woli was not involved in the technical evaluation or preparation of inspection reports and had only processed payments based on recommendations and approval orders from the office chief.
The case was related to a High Compute Infrastructure procurement contract initiated by NITC in fiscal year 2019/20. The court ruled that the supplier provided processors with lower capacity than specified in the bidding agreement.
The contract required processors with a capacity of 2.4 GHz, but World Distribution Nepal supplied processors with only 2.1 GHz capacity. A technical assessment report confirmed that the supplied processors had 14.28 percent lower capacity and quality than required.
However, the court clarified that since the lower-capacity processors and other equipment had been installed and were in operation at NITC, it could not be concluded that government funds had been embezzled.
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