Former Prime Minister and Naya Shakti Nepal Chairman Baburam Bhattarai has said the government has committed a treason by deciding to grant clean chit to mobile network operator Ncell over its capital gains tax.

Despite objections from various ministers, the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday endorsed the proposal presented by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara that capital gains tax should levied on TeliaSonera, the seller of Ncell, instead of the current owner of the private telecom giant.

In a statement on Sunday, Bhattarai said the government orchestrated a ploy to waive the capital gains tax by breaching the established rules and standard.  He said that it was a height of shamelessness on the part of government to put to intervene and make a cabinet decision on the issue by stripping the decision right from a section officer.

“According to the existing legal provision, even a poor farmer has to pay capital gains tax when he has to sell his hard-earned land and house,” said Bhattarai in the statement. “It is not only corruption but treason to support Ncell in evading tax during its sale.” He added that it is a systematic crime to grant tax amnesty to a company that made billions of rupees in profit.

According to the facts made public the state coffers will lose Rs 33 billion in revenue if the government pardoned capital gains tax to Ncell.

In a record deal struck in April, Malaysia’s Axiata bought Reynolds Holding, which held a majority stake in Ncell, from Swedish-Finnish company TeliaSonera at an enterprise value of $1.03 billion (approximately Rs103 billion). Reynolds Holding was TeliaSonera’s wholly-owned subsidiary and registered at Saint Kitts and Nevis, a tax haven.