• LALITA NIWAS LAND GRAB SCAM
KATHMANDU, JULY 16
Kathmandu District Court today allowed police to keep all 17 arrestees of the Lalita Niwas land grab case in judicial custody for five more days.
A single bench of judge Daya Ram Dhakal allowed the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police to keep them in custody for further investigation. So far, incumbent Information Secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut, former secretary and commissioner of Election Commission Sudhir Kumar Shah, owner of Bhatbhateni Supermarket Min Bahadur Gurung and mostly other government employees have been arrested in the scam.
This is the third time the court has given permission to keep the accused in the judicial custody.
Earlier, the court had given seven days custody twice and five days custody once. All the accused were arrested for forging government documents and being involved in organised crime. As per the existing law, police can seek judicial custody for those accused in organised crime up to 60 days to complete the investigation.
Meanwhile, separate habeas corpus case filed by the family of arrestees are still sub-judice at the Supreme Court.
The KDC upon request of the CIB has granted arrest warrants against hundreds who could be linked to the scam. Police said that they are being investigation to link their involvement and once their involvement is established police will arrest them without hesitation.
This is the second time that the CIB has probed the scam. The CIB had to reinvestigate the case after the Office of Kathmandu District Attorney on 2 January 2022 refused to file the case against 400 accused citing that police investigation and gathered evidences into the case was not enough.
Police have now concluded that over 143 ropani land of Lalita Niwas (the complex that houses the prime minister's residence, Nepal Rastra Bank's central office and houses of VIPs) had been transferred to private ownership in four different levels with the collective efforts of land mafia, political leaders and government employees.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 17, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
