KATHMANDU, AUGUST 21

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police, which has been investigating the Lalita Niwas land grab scam, today quizzed former prime ministers Baburam Bhattarai and Madhav Kumar Nepal.

The CIB's move comes in the backdrop of the Supreme Court order saying all high profile people, including the cabinet decision makers, must be brought under the scope of investigation, and not just lower rank government employees who might just have prepared notings and completed the task assigned by high-ranking officials.

Senior Superintendent of Police Dinesh Kumar Acharya said the CIB recorded the statement of Bhattarai and Nepal in relation to the Lalita Niwas land grab case. He, however, did not give details how many questions his office posed to Bhattarai and Nepal and what were the two former prime minister's responses. Acharya said that the CIB would prepare a report and submit it to the government attorney's office in 3 to 4 days.

Former prime minister Bhattarai, who heads Nepal Samjwadi Party wrote on twitter that he, as pledged before, fulfilled his responsibility by providing information to the CIB about the Lalita Niwas land grab case. 'I hope that this case reaches conclusion and becomes a strong starting point for ending all kinds of corruption and ensuring good governance,' Bhattarai added. Bhattarai and Nepal have been maintaining innocence in the Lalita Niwas land grab case.

Joint Attorney at Kathmandu District Attorney's Office Achyut Mani Neupane said police might have got some information from the two former prime ministers but that could not be described as 'recording of statement before the police' as only a suspect records statement before the police. 'Recording statement before the police is done in the presence of a government attorney and we have no information about the two former prime ministers recording their statements before the police,' Neupane added.

A few days earlier, the CIB had quizzed former chief secretary Lilamani Paudel. The Supreme Court had, on August 6, ordered the investigating agencies probing forgery and organised crime charges in Lalita Niwas land grab case to immediately bring the higher ups (Cabinet decision makers) or the people on the top of the pyramid that took the decision to transfer government land plots to private ownership.

A division bench of Justices Anil Kumar Sinha and Kumar Chudal issued the order in response to a habeas corpus writ petition filed on behalf of Yograj Paudel against the Ministry of Home Afthe Ministry of Home Affairs, and others.

The court had ordered the investigating agencies to bring under investigation all the higher ups, including those office bearers or decision makers that were involved in the Cabinet decision taken on 11 April 2010, 14 May 12010, 13 August 2010 and 4 October 2012, those that certified the decisions and executed them, and those people that prepared the notings on behalf of the concerned ministry about the transfer of Lalita Niwas land.

The court observed that there was an allegation that Lalita Niwas land plots were fraudulently transferred to individuals on the basis of the Cabinet decisions taken on 11 April 2010, 14 May 2010, 13 August 2010 and 4 October 2012.

The court observed that the investigators had quizzed the defendants about the pyramid style collusion to transfer government land to private ownership, yet the investigators had not brought the decision makers who were at the top of the pyramid (hierarchy) under investigation.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 22, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.