Special Court on Thursday convicted former commissioner at the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority Raj Narayan Pathak of graft.

The court sentenced Pathak to three years and three months in jail and slapped a fine of Rs3.9 million as per the Corruption Prevention Act 2002, according to Dipendra Nath Yogi, spokesperson of Special Court.

A division bench of judges Shree Kanta Poudel, Yamuna Bhattarai and Balbhadra Baskota also sentenced Lambodar Neupane, the then chairman of the Nepal Engineering College, to three years in jail and a fine of Rs3.9 million.

On March 26, 2019, the anti-graft body had filed a corruption case at the Special Court against Pathak, charging him with committing corruption of Rs7.8 million after he was embroiled in a bribery scandal regarding the ownership of the Changu Narayan-based Nepal Engineering College.

Leaked audio and videos showed Pathak admitting to having received Rs7.8 million from a group headed by Neupane to settle a dispute over land owned by the college.

The group had attempted to capture the property of the college by registering it as a private company from a public one. When the case reached the CIAA, Neupane and his group had reportedly bribed Pathak to settle the dispute in their favour.

After the videos were leaked, Pathak resigned as CIAA commissioner.