In one of the biggest corruption cases of the country, the Special Court on Thursday convicted three former authorities of the Tax Settlement Commission (TSC) including its member secretary Chudamani Sharma, who is a former director general of the Inland Revenue Department.

However, according to Special Court officials, the court gave a clean chit to Sharma and his wife in the case of illegally amassing property.

The Special Court will determine their punishments through a hearing scheduled for June 8.

“Today the Special Court convicted three former officials of the Tax Settlement Commission,” said Deependra Nath Yogi, spokesperson for the Special Court. “Another hearing scheduled for June 8 will determine punishment for them.”

The other two authorities convicted by a three-judge bench of the Special Court led by the court’s chair Shreekanta Poudel are then TSC chair Lumbadhoj Mahat and member Umesh Prasad Dhakal. The bench includes judges Yamuna Bhattarai and Shaligram Koirala as members.

Another corruption case was filed against the suspended director general of the Inland Revenue Department, Sharma, at the Special Court in January, 2018.

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed the case against Sharma for the second time stating that Sharma’s property, amounting to Rs42.95 million, was disproportionate to his legal income.

The CIAA probe found the legal sources of property worth only Rs36.37 million owned by Sharma.

Earlier, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority had filed a corruption case in July 2017 against them at the Special Court on the charge of embezzling Rs10.02 billion each.

Citing sections 3 (i) and 3 (ii), the CIAA had sought to recover the embezzled amount, besides slapping eight to 10 years of jail terms. According to section 7 of the Corruption Prevention Act-2002, fines double the embezzled amount have been sought, in a practice applicable to government staffers.

In February 2015, the Sushil Koirala-led government formed the TSC. On April 13, 2017, the Auditor General’s report questioned tax settlement by the TSC, saying various enterprises were given exemptions amounting to over Rs20 billion.