Budget · Finance Minister record · CPN (Maoist Centre)
Janardan Sharma
जनार्दन शर्मा
His 2022 budget is remembered for one night: unauthorised outsiders allegedly editing tax rates in the ministry before presentation. He resigned; the probe found the CCTV footage already deleted.
Tenure
2021–2022 (resigned & briefly reinstated)
under Sher Bahadur Deuba
Budgets presented
· 2079/80 BS (2022/23)
Background
Former Maoist commander ("Prabhakar"); previously energy minister during the load-shedding turnaround years.
Education
PENDING — primary documentation not yet verified
Announced vs delivered — the record
The FY 2079/80 budget became the federal era's clearest budget-process scandal. Multi-outlet reporting, then a parliamentary special committee, examined allegations that two unauthorised persons entered the Finance Ministry the night before budget presentation and altered customs/tax rates benefiting specific business interests. Sharma resigned when the House formed the probe committee. The committee could not obtain the CCTV footage — recorded as deleted/unavailable in its findings — and, lacking direct evidence, did not establish the allegation; Sharma was reinstated within weeks. The episode is the reference case for why Nepal Next treats budget-night process integrity as a scored criterion at all.
The short version
The night before he announced the budget, two outsiders were allegedly let into the ministry to change tax rates. He resigned, parliament investigated, the security footage had been deleted, and he got the job back. Nobody was punished. That is the whole story, and it is why we watch budget nights now.
Key decisions — and what came of them
2022
FY 2079/80 budget amid post-COVID import surge and reserve pressure
Import restrictions and demand-cooling measures followed via NRB; reserves stabilised through the following year.
Public-record controversies
2022
Probe — not establishedAlleged unauthorised alteration of tax rates by outsiders in the ministry on budget eve; resignation; parliamentary probe; CCTV footage found deleted; reinstated after committee could not establish the allegation.
Source: House of Representatives special committee proceedings, 2022; contemporaneous reporting of record (Kantipur, Setopati, The Kathmandu Post)
Assessment against the rubric
Same five criteria for every steward. Each verdict carries its evidence — a verdict without evidence is an opinion, and this page does not publish opinions. Read the rubric.
Budget credibility
The tax-rate episode undermined the presented budget's integrity regardless of the probe's evidentiary dead-end.
Macro stability
Reserve pressure was inherited and global; the response (with NRB) eventually stabilised the external position.
Structural reform
No durable structural change attributable to the tenure.
Integrity of process
Deleted CCTV in a parliamentary probe of the ministry he led is disqualifying on process grounds, whatever the legal outcome.
Durable legacy
The tenure's lasting artefact is the scandal itself.
Sources · cited verbatim
House of Representatives, Nepal — Special probe committee on budget-eve tax-rate alteration allegations (2022)
Open release checked 2022-07-15Ministry of Finance Nepal — Budget speech FY 2079/80
Open release checked 2025-01-15
Every claim on this page traces to these documents or to records named inline. Documented corrections: contact.
Other stewards
Nepali Congress
Subarna Shumsher Rana
Presented Nepal's first-ever national budget in 1951 — roughly Rs 5.25 crore. Public finance in Nepal starts here.
CPN-UML
Bharat Mohan Adhikari
One budget, nine months in office — and Nepal's first universal old-age allowance came out of it. Still paid today.
Nepali Congress
Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat
Six budgets across two decades. The liberaliser — banking, aviation, telecom opened on his watch. Post-earthquake financing was his last act.