CHITWAN: The Chitwan District Court on Sunday ordered that three doctors arrested on charge of using fake certificates to pursue medical degrees and professional licences be released on bail.

Two of them, however, have been handed over to police again as they were the government employees and they should be investigated by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority.

The government doctors - Sunil Acharya and Rajani Agrawal - have also been asked to file a bail of Rs 100,000 each. The third doctor Rajan Puri submitted Rs 50,000 today itself and came free.

Acharya, Agrawal and Puri were among 36 doctors arrested by the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police on June 17 under its Operation Quack.

The Operation targets medical doctors suspected of using fake academic certificates to pursue medical degrees and professional licences.

According to the Court's Information Officer Krishna Prasad Baral, Rs 2.7 million, Rs 1.4 million and Rs 385,500 fines have been demanded in the cases filed against Acharya, Agrawal and Puri respectively.

If convicted, the doctors would be sent to as much as five years in jail besides the fine.

Three separate benches of the Court had pronounced the verdicts after completing recording the statements by late this evening.