Kathmandu, November 14
Update- 15:00
The District Attorney’s Office has returned the case file of Roop Jyoti and his daughter Suruchi to the police claiming investigation was incomplete. Police, on Wednesday, had claimed that the investigation had been completed and submitted its file to the District Attorney’s Office.
Numraj Khanal, an assistant district attorney at the District Attorney’s Office, said that the report has been returned to the police. “We feel that the investigation isn’t complete. We have asked them to investigate why the complaint was withdrawn as well,” added Khanal.
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Earlier report
The complainant who accused industrialist Roop Jyoti of fraud over a land dispute has withdrawn his complaint, officials said.
Bigendra Krishna Malla, who alleged that Jyoti duped him of Rs 12.6 million, withdrew the complaint on Wednesday, sources said. However, as Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Cricle has already submitted its investigation report to the District Attorney’s Office, it wasn’t clear if the case against Jyoti would be dismissed or not. A criminal case is not dismissed just because a complainant withdraws his/her complaint.
Industrialist Jyoti and his daughter Suruchi have been in police custody for the past eight days over the case involving a plot of land in Basbari in Kathmandu. Numraj Khanal, an assistant district attorney at the District Attorney’s Office, confirmed that police had submitted the investigation report to his office.
“We have received the file. But the complainant has said that he’s already received the money he owed. Whether the case will go ahead or not is yet to be seen. We are not sure that an agreement has been reached between the two parties,” added Khanal.
Jyoti and his daughter were arrested on November 7 after Malla filed a police complaint saying that Jyoti’s company Landmark Developers, which was developing a housing project on the land in Bansbari in association with CE Constructions, sold one part of the land to Malla, but did not surrender its ownership.
According to Malla, CE Construction’s Managing Director Shambhu Prasad Phuyal had taken an advance of Rs 12.6 million from Malla for the land worth Rs 27.6 million. However, Jyoti claims that Phuyal did not inform Landmark Developers about CE’s deal with Malla.
“We had never said we would build a house of Malla on that property. We hadn’t even sold that land. The land was sold by Shambhu Phuyal who took Malla’s money. We had no idea about this. As Phyual’s CE Construction couldn’t deposit the money we asked for the land, we gave the land to Quality Developers,” claims Jyoti. Quality Developers is owned by Suruchi Jyoti.
When Malla found out that the land for which he had already paid Rs 12.6 million was being sold to Quality Developers, he filed a complaint demanding a compensation of Rs 50 million. He also filed a complaint against Roop Jyoti and his daughter Suruchi.
