MARCH 1

The Special Court has convicted nine people of corruption for their role in renting out the premises of the Fun Park at Bhrikutimandap for a song without following the due legal procedure.

They include former office bearers of the Social Welfare Council (SWC) while Nepali Congress lawmaker Tek Bahadur Gurung, who is the operator of the Fun Park, has also been convicted as an accomplice in the corruption case.

In February 2019, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had filed a corruption case at the Special Court against 14 persons, including former minister of labour and employment Gurung and former minister for women, children and social welfare as well as former chair of the SWC Badri Neupane, for leasing 60 ropanis of government land at Bhrikutimandap at a price much lower than the prevailing market price.

In 2012, a meeting of the Board of Directors of the SWC had leased the land to run the Fun Park for a monthly rent of Rs 555,000, inclusive of all taxes, for a period of 15 years.

The per ropani lease works out to just Rs 9,250 a month while the Icchumati Vegetable Market near the fun park has rented a ropani of land for Rs 78,571 a month. The SWC would not have been able to rent out the property so cheap had it followed the legal procedure while awarding contracts – enough reason to raise the suspicion of the CIAA.

With land costing a fortune right across Nepal, unscrupulous people have been eyeing government land to either usurp, encroach or lease at minimal prices through manipulation of the government agencies. While some high-profile cases make their way to the papers, others are largely forgotten, which only encourages land sharks and others to encroach public lands. In the Lalita Niwas land grab scam, 114 ropanis of prime land worth billions of rupees were illegally transferred to big business houses through collusion with the land revenue officials, ministers, political leaders and secretaries of various ministries of Nepal. With so many high-profile people involved, the case has been largely hushed up.

The Pashupatinath Dharamshala land lease issue runs similar to the Fun Park land rental. The Marwari Sewa Samiti has been leasing the land for a pittance and providing an annual support donation of Rs 51,000 to the Pashupati Area Development Trust while operating commercial stalls in the Dharamshala compound and raking in crores of rupees annually.

Media reports reveal that large tracts of land, running into thousands of ropanis, belonging to Sanskrit University in Dang, Tribhuvan University at Kirtipur, Janaki Mandir in Janakpur, Ugratara Temple in Dadeldhura and Swargadwari Temple in Pyuthan, to name but a few, have been usurped by individuals. It is evident that all these land grab and related corruption cases could not have happened without collusion with the powers that be and protection of the political parties. In the Fun Park land lease case, the CIAA has sought to recoup Rs 315 million each from those convicted. The Special Court is to conduct a hearing on March 9 to decide what punishment to mete out to them. Only harsh punishment will deter such unethical practices in the future.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 2, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.