July 27: The parliamentary probe committee, set up to investigate allegations of tax rates manipulation against former finance minister Janardhan Sharma by involving unauthorized persons, has so far failed to acquire enough evidence to confirm the allegations.

Nevertheless, the Parliamentary Special Investigation Committee discussed and analyzed the CCTV footage which it obtained with much difficulty. The committee also called experts from the Forensic Science Laboratory of the Nepal Police and held a discussion on Tuesday. According to sources, the footage of the night of May 28, which was deleted from the CCTV, has been recovered but the scenes are not clear.

After realizing that the CCTV footage is not clear, the committee called experts to discuss about it. In Tuesday's meeting, the committee members asked the experts about the degradation of the video quality. The sought explanation regarding the absence of date and inability to play 51 clips as a single video. According to one of the members of the investigation committee, the experts said it was due to technical reasons and too many system checks.

Surendra Aryal, member secretary of the committee, said that the experts gave their opinion on the things that were not clear. In response to the question of what was seen on the CCTV, he said, “The CCTV showed what was supposed to be shown. Now everything will be included in the report.” According to Aryal, the committee will hold a meeting at 11 am on Wednesday and start writing the report. Aryal also said that the discussion will be continued and conclusion will be drawn based on not only CCTV footage but all other means of investigation as well. 

 “CCTV is not the sole evidence. We have other tools as well to reach the truth Aryal said.

 According to sources, the CCTV footage was unable to give clear conclusion. There is a possibility that there may be differences of opinion among the committee members while writing the report. Sources claim that there may be differences between the MPs of the ruling parties and the opposition party UML regarding the conclusion. All the members of the committee agree that the deadline will not be extended again. The committee was initially given a deadline of 10 days, but later 7 days were extended. There are 2 days left for the extended deadline to expire.