KATHMANDU, MARCH 29

Supreme Court, on Monday, issued an order to the government to present older Cabinet decisions related to the Baluwatar land grab case.

The Court has directed the government to bring forth documents related to decisions made by the Council of Ministers at the time when Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai were the country's prime minister.

The Cabinet decisions were related to the privatisation of different plots of government owned land in Baluwatar area.

A division bench of justices Anil Kumar Sinha and Hari Prasad Phuyal took a decision to this effect, in response to a writ petition filed by senior advocate Bal Krishna Neupane.

Senior Advocate Bal Krishna Neupane, on February 12, 2020, had filed a public interest litigation at the apex court challenging the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA)'s decision not to indict former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal, Baburam Bhattarai and CPN-UML leader Bishnu Paudel's son in the Lalita Niwas land scam.

Neupane had urged the Court to issue an order to CIAA telling it to file cases against Nepal, Bhattarai and Paudel as per Section 59 (c) of Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 35 of the penal code.

CIAA had, a week before that, filed a corruption case against 175 individuals including Nepali Congress leader Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar, former ministers Chandradev Joshi and Dambar Shrestha for their alleged role in the land grab case.

The Commission had stated in the charge sheet that Nepal and Bhattarai-led Cabinet decisions related to Lalita Niwas land case were the Cabinet's collective policy decisions over which it had no jurisdiction.

Nepal was the country's prime minister from September 25, 2010 to February 5, 2011 and Bhattarai held the position from August 29, 2011 to March 13, 2013.