Kathmandu, April 26
In the case of fake Bhutanese refugees case, the Supreme Court has refused to release seven people including UML leader Top Bahadur Rayamajhi.
They had appealed to the Supreme Court after Kathmandu District Court and Patan High Court ordered to keep them in custody for trial. On Thursday, the bench of Justice Kumar Regmi and Tek Prasad Dhungana upheld the Patan High Court’s order by refusing to release them on bail or normal dates.
Those who were ordered to be detained by the Supreme Court were the then Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey; Indrajit Rai, adviser to the then Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal, Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Sagar Rai and Sandesh Sharma, the main accused in the Bhutanese refugee case.
The Supreme Court has ordered Nepali Congress leader Ang Tawa Sherpa to be released on bail of Rs 300,000.
Accused of the fraud business of sending Nepali as fake Bhutanese refugees to the USA, he gave a denial statement in the detention hearing in the district court. Jima Sherpeni, who filed a complaint against him, filed a petition in the district court on May 25, 2023, saying that “Rs 540,000 was transacted, but it was related to taking individuals to the US, but the police wrote and stamped what we did not say in the complaint.”
Judging that there was no need to keep him in custody for trial, the joint bench of the Supreme Court overruled the orders of the District Court, Kathmandu and the High Court and ordered him to be released on bail of Rs 300,000.
Similarly, Govind Kumar Chaudhary, who was ordered to be sent to prison by the District and High Courts, has also been ordered by the Supreme Court to be released on a bond of Rs 1 million.
The court ruled that Chaudhary had given a denial statement in the court, that it was not clear from the evidence attached to the missile that he raised or took the money, and it was not clear for what purpose the sum of Rs 2.4 million was deposited in the bank.
In addition, it was found that Chaudhary’s wife Niju Chaudhary had transferred the land of Morang Kaseni to the name of the person named by Keshav Prasad Dulal, the main accused in the fake Bhutanese refugee case.
He has been ordered to release him on bail of Rs 1 million in cash or its equivalent.
Similarly, the then-chairperson of the Nepal Hajj Committee, Shamsher Mia, has also been ordered to be released on ordinary dates. The High Court had ordered the bail of Rs 1 million. But since the victims did not mention the name that they had given him money, he gave a denial statement and no one even mentioned his name, the Supreme Court cancelled the higher order to take a bond of Rs 1 million and ordered it to be released on a normal date.
On June 16, 2023, in the case of fake Bhutanese refugees, the district court in Kathmandu ordered that 16 people including Nepali Congress leader Balkrishna Khand and UML leader Top Bahadur Rayamajhi be sent to prison for pre-trial detention.
