The Special Court on Friday convicted former managing director of Nepal Telecom Sunil Paudel on the charges of corruption while procuring the National Payment Gateway system.

A joint bench of Special Court Chairperson Tek Narayan Kunwar and member Murari Babu Shrestha found Paudel guilty of causing loss to the state coffers and misusing government funds.

However, eight other accused, including government secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini, have been acquitted.

Paudel has been charged as per Section 17 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002.

Section 17 states that whoever being a public servant, misappropriates, causes loss to or abuses or causes others to do so, or destroys or uses for personal purposes, while performing his/her duties pertaining to his/her office, shall be liable to be punished pursuant to Section 3 and the property which has been misappropriated, damaged, misused or destroyed or caused others to do so, shall be recovered from him/her.

On October 2, 2023, the CIAA filed a corruption case against nine people including Paudel and Marasini in the National Payment Gateway purchase case.

The anti-graft body accused them of causing loss to the state coffers and misusing government funds by purchasing the system at Rs250 million without preparing the necessary infrastructure and approving an unreasonable high estimate for the system purchase.

The court findings showed that the defendant’s failure to fulfil his responsibility and put the software to proper use had caused financial loss to the government.

“It has been found that Paudel had ordered Rs232,758,077 be paid for procurement of the system,” the court said in its order. “It was the responsibility of the defendant, as the head of the organisation, to make sure that the purchased software is put to proper use. However, the system has yet to be brought into operation.”

Thus, the government has incurred a loss due to the negligence of the defendants [Paudel], the court said.

Paudel’s punishment will be announced on May 7, said Yagyaraj Regmi, information officer at the Special Court.