{"id":31692,"date":"2026-06-22T10:25:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T04:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/?p=31692"},"modified":"2026-06-22T10:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T04:45:08","slug":"nepal-investment-mega-bank-ceo-arrested-in-smart-telecom-case-how-did-ncell-get-involved-what-happens-now-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.bankingsansar.com\/news\/31692","title":{"rendered":"Nepal Investment Mega Bank CEO Arrested In Smart Telecom Case: How did Ncell get involved? What happens now?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kathmandu. Jyoti Prakash Pandey, CEO of Nepal Investment Mega Bank, has been arrested on the charge of auctioning government property. The police are preparing to file a case in this case against Sarbesh Joshi, the chief of Smart Cell. The issue of the bank auctioning the property that has come in the name of the government has been seen in a subtle way, as well as Ncell’s connection has also been seen in this case. <\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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Let’s first understand briefly, ‘What is the bank linked smart cell case?’ <\/strong><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

After Smart Telecom failed to pay nearly Rs 30 billion to the state, its license was automatically revoked on April 17, 2080.TAG_OPEN_div_35 After the license was revoked, according to the law, all the property of Smart Telecom belonged to the state. However, Nepal Investment Mega Bank (NIBL) issued an auction notice saying that the government has not repaid its debts. Smart Cell also wrote a letter requesting for auction. The bank auctioned the property. Out of the 3 companies that participated in the auction, Ncell got all the auctioned properties. However, when the police arrested Sarvesh Joshi, CEO of Nepal Investment Mega Bank and head of Smart Cell, on the charge of auctioning government property against the rules, the case became a topic of discussion. After its moneylenders were also arrested, Ncell hurriedly wrote a letter to the bank demanding the return of its money. <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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The prevailing law prohibits Smart Cell from selling any property. Rule 6 of the Telecommunication Service Provider’s Property Management Rules, 2079 BS prohibits the service provider from selling or transferring any property that has been revoked to the license. However, the auction process went ahead challenging this rule. Bhupendra Bhandari, chairman of the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA), said that the NTA had written to Nepal Investment Mega Bank, the regulator of the banks, Nepal Rastra Bank and others to stop the auction. But the bank did not listen to the authority. <\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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Now let’s see where the smell of the trick appeared! <\/strong><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

After Nepal TAG_OPEN_div_30 Investment Mega Bank opened the auction, 3 companies including Ncell bid for the auction. Professional Business Network Pvt. Ltd. and Transgate Tech Pvt. Ltd. bid for Rs. 44.20 crore. However, Ncell bid Rs 4.60 billion, which is 10 times more than other competitors. After bidding the highest amount, he accepted the property. <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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Ncell accepts the property of Smart Cell. But since the inception of Smart Cell, the current creditors of Ncell are the same. When Smart Telecom got the license on April 15, 2070, Square Network, Lal Sahu Holdings, a company owned by Tisalal Acharya and Bhawana Singh Shrestha, had invested in the company. The government inquiry committee has also mentioned this issue in its report. <\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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Not only did Ncell’s creditors get involved in the game of not paying billions of rupees that one of its companies owes to the state, and buying the property of the state by bidding for another company, but the involvement of the bank was also seen in it. The CEO had to go to police custody as a result of auctioning the property by ignoring the letter of the Telecommunication Authority, the message was sent that he had betrayed the state. <\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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Ncell has written a letter to the bank asking for the return of Rs 4 billion it had paid, seeing that its creditors could be arrested in this case.TAG_OPEN_div_24 The bank is in a dilemma \u2013 do not return the money, Ncell has asked for it when it does not get the auctioned goods. <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu. Jyoti Prakash Pandey, CEO of Nepal Investment Mega Bank, has been arrested on the charge of auctioning government property. The police are preparing to file a case in this case against Sarbesh Joshi, the chief of Smart Cell. The issue of the bank auctioning the property that has come in the name of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,96,123,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-en","category-premium-en","category-banking-update-en","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/nimb-bank.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31693,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31692\/revisions\/31693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/31690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}