The parliamentary special committee investigating the embezzlement of depositors’ funds by various cooperatives has decided to ask for documents from 20 cooperatives that were declared problematic by the government.

According to committee chair Surya Bahadur Thapa, the 7th meeting of the committee held on Sunday decided to correspond to get the necessary documents.

“Today’s meeting specifically decided to correspond to request the documents of 20 cooperatives that have been declared problematic. In the sixth meeting, we had already decided to request the documents of the other nine crisis-ridden cooperatives,” said Thapa.

The committee meeting held discussions with Radha Krishna Mainali, the coordinator of the task force formed to study cooperatives in 1990, Yuba Raj Khatiwada, the coordinator of the task force formed to study cooperatives in 2004-05, and Gauri Bahadur Karki, the coordinator of the commission formed to investigate problematic cooperatives in 2013.

The committee, at its meeting on June 26, had decided to seek documents from cooperatives that transferred funds to Gorkha Media Network.

Gitendra Babu (GB) Rai, the chairman of the media house, is accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of rupees in collusion with different cooperatives in Kaski, Chitwan, and Butwal. Rai is currently on the run.

After weeks of negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, a seven-member committee led by CPN-UML lawmaker Thapa was constituted on May 28 to investigate the embezzlement of deposits in dozens of cooperatives around the country.

As per the committee’s jurisdiction as defined in its terms of reference, the committee will investigate the crisis-ridden cooperatives, their legal and institutional purposes, financial systems, regulatory arrangements, supervision and transparency, and make recommendations to the government.

Another task is to recommend measures for the immediate return of savings to the depositors of the problematic cooperatives identified by the Department of Cooperatives and the Crisis-ridden Cooperatives Management Committee.

The probe panel was formed after the main opposition Nepali Congress disrupted parliamentary proceedings for over two months demanding such a body be constituted to investigate cooperative scams.

The issue got complicated as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane, who is the chair of the Rastriya Swatantra Party, is also accused of misusing the money from various cooperatives. Lamichhane was managing director of Gorkha Media Network before joining politics.