The Special Court released all the seven officials of Purbanchal University who were prosecuted on the charge of misappropriating millions of rupees from the universitys fund.
A three member bench of judges Kedar Prasad Chalise, Mohan Raman Bhattarai and Bhupendra Rai released them on the condition that they present themselves at the court on the date mentioned, stating that the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) could not produce evidence to detain them in order to proceed with the trial.
On June 1, CIAA had prosecuted Chancellor Maheshwor Man Shrestha and other six officials.
The anti-graft body stated that the officials had caused a loss of Rs 42.87 million to the university due to their failure to collect affiliation charge and fees from affiliated colleges and their students in fiscal year 2013/14.
Registrar Niroj Pandey, Controller of Examinations Mohan Bahadur Basnet, Dean of Arts, Education and Law faculty Shambhu Prasad Koirala, Dean of Science and Technology faculty Shubha Narayan Pathak, Dean of Management faculty Shyam Bahadur Katuwal and Co-Dean of Science and Technology faculty Rajesh Kumar Jha were prosecuted for committing offence under Section 17 of the Corruption Prevention Act, 2002.
The CIAA had demanded that the court slap each of them imprisonment up to 10 years, and recover the incurred loss and fine equivalent to the principal as per Section 3(1) of the Act.
On May 27, the anti-corruption constitutional body had arrested six university officials except Dean of Art, Education and Law, Koirala, for investigation .
