Lalita Niwas case must start from the top to execution levels as ordered by the apex court
The remaining political career of two former prime ministers - Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai - will come to an end, and they will be barred from contesting elections in the future if they are convicted on charges of transferring Lalita Niwas land to individuals through their cabinet decisions. In its landmark directives issued to the investigating agencies on Sunday, a division bench of Justices of the Supreme Court Anil Kumar Sinha and Kumar Chudal told them to immediately bring the higher ups (Cabinet decision makers) or people at the top of the pyramid that decided to transfer government plots to individual ownership within the scope of their investigation. Currently, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police has launched its investigation into the Lalita Niwas land grab scam on charges of forging official documents and organised crime in which dozens of government employees and individuals have been arrested. But the division bench observed that the ongoing investigation was mainly focused on lower rank government employees who performed the assigned tasks and those who had bought land after it was transferred to individuals.
The court ordered the agencies to probe all the higher-ups, including those office bearers or decision makers, who were involved in the cabinet decisions taken on April 11, 2010, May 14, 2010, August 13, 2010 and October 4, 2012, and those who certified the decisions and executed them.
The court issued this order to the concerned probing agencies in response to a habeas corpus writ filed on behalf of Yograj Paudel against the Home Ministry and others.
But the court has kept a similar case, filed by senior advocate Balkrishna Neupane, pending. Madhav Kumar Nepal, chairman of the CPN-Unified Socialist Party and a major ally of the ruling coalition, was the prime minister in 2010 when his Cabinet decisions established the tenancy rights on the government land, which was illegal. Bhattarai, now chair of Nepal Socialist Party, was the prime minister in 2012 when his Cabinet decision allowed four ropanis of land of Lalita Niwas to be transferred into guthi land, which was later converted into private property through forgery.
The top court has clearly stated that the Lalita Niwas land garb case must be conducted independently, competently and in a neutral manner so that the investigation can win public trust, otherwise the people will lose faith in the Judiciary. Land mafias would not have been able to grab as much as 143 ropanis of Lilita Niwas land, acquired by the government by following due process of law some 59 years ago, without the collusion of top layers of the decision makers. It was not only a case of forgery, but also an organised crime committed by the powers that be. Earlier, the Commission for the Investigation of Authority had also probed the case, but did not touch Nepal and Bhattarai, as, it said, it did not have power to investigate against them. With the apex court's order to the government agencies even to launch an investigation into the cabinet decisions, former prime ministers Nepal and Bhattarai will not be spared. The Lalita Niwas land grab case will not come to a logical conclusion unless the concerned agencies start their probe from the cabinet decisions to the execution level.
Highway to widen
Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) Balendra Shah must be credited for the spree in demolishing illegal structures taking place right across the county. Since taking office in May last year, the municipality's bulldozers have been creating quite a terror in the capital, razing illegal buildings and walls built on government land. His initiative and boldness in clearing the illegal structures despite opposition from some quarters have nudged the mayors of other municipalities across the country to follow suit. The mayors of Dharan, Pokhara, Dhangadhi, Bharatpur and now Rajbiraj too have begun a campaign to reclaim government land by removing all illegally-built infrastructure.
In the latest episode, Rajbiraj Municipality has started demolishing all physical infrastructures built within nine metres of the Postal Highway in Saptari so as to widen and manage it. Due to encroachment of the two-lane highway, it has become extremely difficult to manage vehicular movement there. The municipality alone cannot take responsibility for evicting the residents from the occupied land. The provincial and federal governments too must cooperate with the local level in carrying out the development agenda.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 8, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
