Kathmandu, February 14: The decision on whether to prosecute former prime ministers in the Lalita Niwas land episode, in which government land was transferred in the name of individuals, has been extended. On Thursday, the Supreme Court decided to send the writ petition seeking the prosecution of former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai to the full bench.

A writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking prosecution of former prime ministers Nepal and Bhattarai for transferring public land in the name of individuals. A division bench of Justices Til Prasad Shrestha and Nityananda Pandey on Thursday decided to send the case to a full bench (comprising three more judges).

In recent times, there has been an increasing trend of taking decisions from the council of ministers even though decisions could have been made at the minister and secretary level of the government. The practice of making such decisions on a policy basis has increased as there will be no investigation against the decisions taken by the Cabinet meeting from any organs. Senior advocate Bal Krishna Neupane had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) and the Office of the Attorney General, accusing the Commission of not prosecuting the then Prime Ministers while filing a case against Lalita Niwas.

During the arguments, the petitioners had demanded that the case be sent to a full bench as only two judges could not deliver the verdict as the nature of the case was complicated. As per the demand of the writ petitioner, the Supreme Court has ordered to send the case to the full bench. Earlier, the Supreme Court had ordered to withdraw the decisions of the Council of Ministers made during the tenure of the then Prime Ministers Nepal and Bhattarai on the Lalita Niwas issue.

In 2077 BS, a division bench of Justices Anil Kumar Sinha and Hari Prasad Phuyal had ordered the government to submit the Cabinet decisions taken before transferring the government land of Lalita Niwas to the individuals.

People’s News Monitoring service.