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Kathmandu, July 8: The Supreme Court has asked former Prime Ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai why they should not be prosecuted in the Lalita Niwas land scam case.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Man Singh Raut and Justices Tek Prasad Dhungana and Nityananda Pandey issued a show cause order last Thursday concerning the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA)’s decision not to file cases against the two former prime ministers in the controversial land grab case.
Senior advocate Balkrishna Neupane had filed a petition on 29th Magh, 2076 (February 2020), challenging the CIAA’s decision not to prosecute former PMs Nepal and Bhattarai. He demanded a court order against that decision.
At the time, Nepal and Bhattarai had been listed as defendants in the case. However, following preliminary hearings, then Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana ordered only other concerned parties to submit written responses, excluding the former PMs from the directive.
Summons had already been served to the CIAA, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Office of the Attorney General, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police, and other related bodies.
After the CIB failed to register cases of forgery and organized crime against the duo, senior advocate Neupane and advocate Rabin Sharma approached the Supreme Court for the second time. A separate writ petition has also been filed challenging the verdict of the Special Court.
Nearly five years later, a joint bench of the Supreme Court in the month of Fagun (February/March 2024) referred the case to a full bench of three justices.
Initially placed under review, the full bench, after its second day of hearing, issued an order to serve formal summons to former PMs Nepal and Bhattarai and to seek their written replies.
Now that they have been served, both former prime ministers must submit written responses to the Supreme Court, clarifying why the CIAA should not file charges against them in the Lalita Niwas land scam.
The case currently under consideration at the Special Court involving Patanjali, which includes former PM Nepal, will not be affected by the Supreme Court proceedings on this matter.
If the Supreme Court concludes that former PMs Nepal and Bhattarai should be investigated, the CIAA will be obliged to reopen the process, take their statements, and conduct further inquiry. However, the CIAA will still retain the discretion to decide whether to initiate formal prosecution.

People’s News Monitoring Service