The Special Court on Tuesday convicted nine officials of the Poverty Alleviation Fund on charge of budget misappropriation.

The joint bench of Baburam Regmi, Chandi Raj Dhakal and Pramod Kumar Shrestha Baidhya found nine of the fourteen accused PAF officials guilty in the multi-million embezzlement case. Former Executive Director of the PAF Rajbabu Shrestha is among those convicted.

The Special Court sentenced him to five months in prison. He was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs 114,739.

The court added a month to his sentence duration of four months for abusing his position, said Nagendra Keshari Pokhrel, spokesperson for the Special Court.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had accused Shrestha of  misappropriating Rs 27.3 million.

The Special Court also ordered Manoj Chipalu, chief of the PAF administration and finance section, to spend four months in prison and pay a fine of Rs 103,419.

The CIAA had accused him of misappropriating Rs 23.5 million.

Prabin Ghimire, accounts officer, was also sentenced in the case. The court handed him a four-month prison term and a fine of Rs 114,912.

The anti-graft body had accused him of misappropriating Rs 27.6 million.

The court also sentenced the managerial staff Lal Bahadur Siwa with six-month jail term and Rs 248,912 fine, Sanjay Kumar Jha with eight-month jail term and Rs 378,260 fine, Jayaram Panta with seven-month jail term and Rs 301,680 fine,  and Akhilesh Chandra Das with one year jail term and Rs 170,395 fine, Hareram Wagle with three-month jail term and Rs 74,580 fine, and Durga Bahadur Gandhari with three-month jail term and Rs 85,250 fine.

On March 11, 2015, the CIAA had filed a corruption case against 14 PAF officials at the Special Court. They were charged with embezzlement of Rs 2.78 billion meant for poverty alleviation programmes.

Before filing the case, the anti-graft body had suspended Shrestha from his position of executive director to prevent him from influencing the investigation process.

PAF was established in 2004 at the joint initiatives of World Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development and Nepal Government with the aim of improving the status of people living under extreme poverty.