The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority on Sunday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against six individuals including Bikal Paudel, former executive director of the Security Printing Centre, and Safal Shrestha, former director of the National Information Technology Centre.

The anti-graft body said in a statement that they were involved in irregularities of up to Rs400 million while procuring equipment for the printing press.

According to the CIAA, the accused were involved in preparation and approval of an unnatural (inflated) cost estimate and demanded more equipment than required for their own personal monetary gains.

“It has been found that equipment supplier Bancotec Pte Ltd, Singapore had transferred a commission fee to defendant Bikal Paudel and his wife to their bank accounts in the Singapore-based United Overseas Bank and New York-based Bank of America,” the statement reads.

Paudel, Shrestha, and Nabin Kumar Pokharel, former technical director at the Department of Forest and Irrigation, were responsible for procuring two printing press machines, while the need was just for one, with unnecessary features which only ramped up the costs, which resulted in the government incurring loss of over Rs408.574 million, the CIAA further added.

The anti-graft body demanded service provider Max International and its CEO Akbar Hussain be charged as main defendants and Rs407.557 million be recovered from them.