KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 10

Kathmandu District Court today released 17 out of 18 people arrested in the Lalita Niwas land grab scam on bail. The 18th accused was released on general court date. The court set Rs 24.6 million bail bond for Bhatbhateni Super Market owner Min Bahadur Gurung, the highest so far.

Bench of Judge Bholanath Dhakal passed the order after hearing arguments from both sides, the government and accused's attorneys, according to spokesperson of the KDC Deepak Dahal.

The court passed the order after lawyers, who hadbeen arguing the case for almost a week now, concluded oral submissions.

Accused Keshav Tuladhar has been released on general date. Min Bahadur Gurung was arrested on June 26, along with a few land revenue office employees, one of the earliest arrestees in the scam.

The court set bail bond of Rs 330,000.00 for Shivji Bhattarai and Dhurba Prasad Aryal, Rs 750,000.00 bail for Rudra Kumar Shrestha, Bal Krishna Shrestha, Ghaman Kumar Karki, Gopal Karki, Yograj Paudel, Arun Kumar Shrestha and Lokhari Ghimire. The court set bail of Rs 1.5 million for Kaladhar Deuja and Binod Prasad Paudel.The court set the bail of Rs 110,000.00 for Baburaja Maharjan, Dev Narayan Maharjan, Sakalanand Maharjan and Sanjay Kumar Maharjan.

Sixteen out of 17 defendants were released from custody af-ter they posted bail. Arun Kumar Shrestha was sent to judicial custody as he failed to post bail today.

The Central Investigation Bureau, after completing two months long investigation had indicted more than 300 people and submitted its report to the district government attorney office suggesting that they beprosecuted under organised crime and forgery.

However, on August 27, the district government attorney filed a case against 289 accused and additional 21 deceased persons in connectionwith the forgery of government documents.

Those facing the charges are former deputy prime minister Bijay Kumar Gachhadar, former ministers Chandra Dev Joshi, Dambar Bahadur Shrestha, Chhabi Raj Panta and former state minister Sanjay Sah.

Sah, convicted of murder charges, remains in jail.Similarly, the incumbent Communications and Information Secretary, Krishna Bahadur Raut and joint-secretary at the home ministry Sushil Vaidya have also been charged in the case.It may be recalled that, CIB, two years ago, had also accused more than 400 people, including former bureaucrats-turned-ministers, government employees and land mafias, of grabbing 143 ropani land at Lalita Niwas.

However, the government attorney had refused to file the case against the accused citinglack of evidence.

But this time, CIB claimed it has collected all evidences that prove wrongdoing on the part of the accused.

An investigation of the Central Investigation Bureau showed that the four Cabinet decisions that were taken on the proposal of the ministers from April 2010 to October 2012 paved the way for the transfer of government land to private partnership.

However, Nepal Police has named former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai, whose Cabinets had reached the decision on the transfer of Lalita Niwas land, only witnesses in their report.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 11, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.