Former Nepal Telecom chief Sunil Paudel sentenced to eight years in bribery case

Kathmandu / July 16: The Special Court has sentenced former Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sunil Paudel and businessman Deepak Anand to eight years in prison each after finding them guilty in a bribery case.

A bench comprising Chairperson Sudarshan Dev Bhatt and members Hemant Rawal and Dilliratna Shrestha delivered the verdict on Thursday.

The court also imposed an additional six-month prison term on Paudel for committing corruption while serving in a senior government position.

The verdict came in a case filed by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), which accused Paudel of soliciting a bribe from Anand.

Although the alleged bribe amount of Rs 30.8 million was not recovered, the court did not fix it as the embezzled amount. However, it ordered both defendants to pay fines of Rs 15.4 million each, calculated by equally dividing the alleged bribe amount.