As per the charge sheet, the anti-corruption organization has just investigated the seizure of land from 65 out of 175 people accused in the case.
“How can a judgment register the land in the name of certain individuals be judged a policy decision? A policy decision should be in the welfare of all the Nepalese people,” said Khem Raj Regmi, chairman of the Nepal branch of Transparency International, the global anti-corruption body. Those who decided to illegally assign the government land into private hands were saved while those who executed the decision are being prosecuted, Regmi added.
Khem Raj Regmi also re-approached the board resolution to let the former prime ministers and other high-ranking leaders off the hook while prosecuting smaller fry and oppositional party leaders.
The ex-deputy prime minister, also the minister for physical infrastructure & transportation Bijay Kumar Gachhadar, and two former land restoration diplomats Dambar Shrestha and Chandra Dev Joshi face bribery charges over the odious Lalita Niwas scam.
Despite indicating the involvement, the anti-corruption group did not file cases against Ex prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai, regardless of the illegal transfers taking place during their tenures. The committee settled that their decisions were the common policy resolutions of the Cabinet.
As per the act, the administration is incapable to investigate policy decisions of the Cabinet. The anti-corruption organization has long been demanding that policy judgments be clearly defined in the law and the commission said in a report that it doesn’t possess the authority to sue the two previous prime ministers as per the Supreme Court judgment of September 24, 1996, and Article 4 of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority Act.
Former secretary Sharada Prasad Trital started inquiries in the case in early 2019 based on the report of a board headed who had studied into illegal transfer of land in the government, public, and Guthi-owned land. The committee had found that 136 ropanis of government land had been illegally registered in the name of private citizens. Though were owned by the government in the 1960s, the lands were initially owned by the late Nepali Congress leader Subarna Shumsher.
