Net the ‘big fish’

The CIAA must begin cracking down on large-scale corruption issues with a system-based approach.

It's been almost a year since Ramhari Subedi, a non-gazetted official at the Kalanki Land Revenue Office, committed suicide after spending 42 days in custody after the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) accused him of taking Rs1,000 in bribe from a service seeker. Subedi was acquitted posthumously by the Special Court on July 14, a fact that came to light only last week. Having driven a public servant to self-destruction, the commission, on its part, failed to even furnish adequate evidence to support its accusation. All it had to say was that Subedi was caught on CCTV taking the money . Subedi's suicide and the acquittal that followed epitomise the modus operandi of the CIAA over the years, hounding people accused of petty crimes and passing over the crimes of the mighty.