By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Feb. 12 : The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has decided to take action against two Indian climbers who had falsely claimed to have climbed Mount Everest in the spring of 2016.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the ministry stated that the two Indian nationals Narendra Singh and Seema Rani had submitted false details to obtain their summit certificates in violation of the Mountaineering Expedition Rules 2002.

“That is why the Ministry has decided to cancel their certificates and give them six-year retrospective mountaineering bans starting 2016,” reads the statement.

The Ministry has also banned team leader Naba Kumar Phukon, also an Indian citizen, from scaling any Nepali peaks for six years from 2016 to 2022. The company which organised the expedition, Seven Summit Peaks, has been fined Rs. 50,000.

A Rs. 10,000 fine was also slapped on helper Nga Dawa Sherpa for creating fake documents attesting to Narendra Singh’s ascent of the world’s highest peak.

Liaison Officer Pawan Kumar Ghimire, who is a government official, has been deemed to have failed in carrying out his duties and has been warned.

Singh and Rani were part of a 14-member private expedition to Mount Everest led by Phukon.

For his supposedly successful climb, Singh had been recommended for the Tenzing Norgay Award, the highest adventure sports award of India, in 2020. But later, the Indian government withheld his recommendation citing the media reports that accused him of faking his climb.