The Special Court has sentenced a four-year jail term to an employee of Nepal Telecom for his involvement in unauthorised sale of CDMA and GSM mobile recharge cards on Sunday.

A three-member bench of Justices Gauri Bahadur Karki, Bhola Prasad Kharel and Om Prakash Mishra convicted Sadhu Ram Thapa, a storekeeper at NTC’s Patan branch for amassing Rs 3.6 million through unauthorised sale of the recharge cards. SC has also ordered Thapa to return the embezzled amount.

Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed a case against Thapa accusing him of misusing recharge cards of Rs 200, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations kept under his security, last year.

The court, however, acquitted him on a separate charge of corruption of misusing SIM cards worth Rs 0.6 million. The court gave Thapa the benefit of doubt in this case saying his involvement is not clear as he is not authorized to distribute SIM cards without approval of a higher authority. nepalnews.com