The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on Sunday filed a corruption case at the Special Court against 16 individuals, including Milan Kumar Thapa, the member secretary of the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT), in connection with procurement irregularities related to the electric crematorium project.

According to CIAA, the accused colluded to embezzle over Rs103.3 million by deliberately inflating costs and violating public procurement rules in the purchase and installation of cremation machines at the electric crematorium located at Pashupati, Aryaghat.

The anti-graft body submitted its charge sheet to the Special Court in Kathmandu, claiming that the PADT officials and two companies—Apple Engineering Professional Consultancy Pvt Ltd and Map Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd—manipulated procurement procedures for personal gain, causing significant financial damage to the state.

The CIAA’s investigation revealed that PADT, under Thapa’s leadership, hired a consultancy firm lacking relevant experience and accepted falsified quotations to prepare a rigged technical proposal and cost estimate. The report submitted by the consultant was incomplete and based on fictitious data, yet was approved and used to initiate procurement without due diligence, said CIAA spokesperson Yagya Regmi.

The cremation machines, reportedly worth only around INR3.25 million (approximately Rs5.2 million), were shown to cost over Rs15.2 million in the project documents.

Advance payments totalling Rs18.2 million were made to Map Entrepreneurs without ensuring the machines met contractual specifications. The equipment installed was later found to be of substandard quality, failed to function properly, and remains non-operational.

CIAA further stated that the contract process was carried out without confirming a suitable installation site, and important procurement conditions were amended without valid reason to favour a specific bidder. In addition, the project’s Terms of Reference were designed to exclude genuine competition by setting unusually high experience requirements.

Despite repeated technical failures and expiry of the contract and advance payment guarantees (APG), no legal or financial recovery action was taken by the responsible officials, according to the charge sheet. Furthermore, individuals unrelated to the project were sent abroad under the pretext of study visits using project funds.

“The accused caused financial harm amounting to Rs103.39 million to PADT by misusing their authority in violation of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2002,” the CIAA stated.

Among those charged are former PADT member secretary Raju Kumar Khatri and former executive director Ghanashyam Khatiwada.

Likewise, incumbent deputy director Sitaram Risel; engineers Pashupati Thakur, Denis Upreti, Ramesh Puri; account officer Chandra Prasad Khanal; associate professor Yubaraj Adhikari; legal advisor Lain Bahadur Thapa; and Manoj Puri and Yadunandan Bhattarai of the Map Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd and Suraj Chapagain of Apple Engineering Professional Consultancy Pvt Ltd have also been chargesheeted in the case.

The CIAA has demanded legal penalties against all individuals and entities involved.