The Special Court on Tuesday released Chudamani Sharma, a member of now defunct Tax Settlement Commission (TSC), on bail after conducting the first ever trial since a corruption case was filed against him, along with two other TSC members, on July 16.

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed the Rs10.96 billion corruption case against Sharma, TSC chairman Lumba Dhowj Mahat and member Umesh Dhakal, on the charge of misappropriating revenue and settling taxes in a questionable manner. 

Nagendra Pokharel, spokesperson for the Special Court, told the Post that the court released Sharma on bail after he submitted a bank guarantee of Rs10 million. He had received bank guarantee from Nepal Investment Bank.

A bench of Justices Dwarika Man Joshi, Ratna Bahadur Bagchand and Narayan Prasad Pokharel had set the bail amount after the hearing.Sharma, the suspended director general of the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), had ignored a summons on October 23 to appear before the court for a trial. 

The Special Court had earlier released Mahat and Dhakal on Rs10 million bail. They were sent to jail on November 21 after they failed to submit the bail amount. “But the two were released after they submitted the amount,” Pokharel confirmed.

Mahat and Dhakal had surrendered themselves to the Special Court on November 16 after remaining at large since the CIAA initiated a probe against them and arrested Sharma on June 2. 

After the CIAA took Sharma under its control, his wife Kalpana Upreti Sharma had filed a habeas corpus writ  at the Supreme Court on July 11, demanding his release. Responding to the writ, the SC on August 10 ordered the anti-graft body to release Sharma on a general date.

According to CIAA officials, a detailed study of files related to tax exemption unearthed misappropriation of revenue by the TSC members as due tax had been settled in a questionable manner, with some enterprises getting as much as 99 percent tax exemption.