Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: The Special Court has acquitted all 18 defendants in the Nepal Telecom billing system procurement case.
A division bench of Special Court Judges Narayan Prasad Paudel and Bidur Koirala issued the verdict on Thursday. Those acquitted include then Nepal Telecom Managing Director Sangita Pahadi and former Managing Director Sunil Paudel.
Pahadi, who was appointed to the position in September 2024 on a four-year term, was automatically suspended after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) filed a corruption case against her and 17 others at the Special Court on June 8 last year.
The verdict means Pahadi will now return as the Managing Director of the state-owned telecom company.
Paudel was the Managing Director of Nepal Telecom, while Pahadi was the Chief Commercial Officer when the procurement decision was made.
Nepal Telecom had signed the “Supply, Delivery, Installation, Supervision, Commissioning and Technical Support and Warranty Level services of Convergent Real Time Billing and Customer Support” contract with Asiainfo Linkage Technologies of China for five years on December 21, 2011. It had signed a four+one year annual maintenance contract with the Chinese company on January 8, 2023.
In its verdict, the bench stated that officials involved in the agreement, including the managing director, could not be deemed to have acted with malicious intent to cause illegal loss to Nepal Telecom or to derive personal benefit. It also found no evidence that officials from Asiainfo colluded with officials from Nepal Telecom to harm the company.
