As the Nepali Congress chief whip in Parliament, Ramesh Lekhak was among the most vocal advocates for the formation of a parliamentary committee to look into the irregularities in the cooperatives sector, with a particular focus on Gorkha Media Network. This was less than three months ago when the Congress was the main opposition. There had at the time been widespread media reporting on how the network chairman, GB Rai, and Managing Director, Rabi Lamichhane, had been involved in embezzling money from cooperatives and pumping it into the network’s Galaxy 4K television. The matter was urgent as Lamichhane was the serving deputy prime minister and home minister. Credible evidence had surfaced of the home minister trying to suppress police investigation into his personal involvement in the scam. Partly as a result of the relentless pressure from the likes of Lekhak and his party, such a committee indeed came into being on May 28. The same committee has now presented reams of evidence showing how Lamichhane misused money illegally brought into the network from various cooperatives. Lekhak, who has replaced Lamichhane as home minister, now has the chance to walk the talk and implement the recommendations of the parliamentary probe committee he so earnestly championed.

Lamichhane and his Rastriya Swatantra Party colleagues rather curiously claim that the party chair has been given a ‘clean cheat’ by the probe committee. Far from it. It has instead held him responsible for the gross misuse of his office of the Gorkha Media Network’s Managing Director. Additionally, the committee has presented clear evidence of how Lamichhane used forged documents to undertake various financial deals while serving as the network’s MD. This is also an untenable premise considering that people in similar positions have been prosecuted. For instance, Gita Basnet, a parliamentarian from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, is on the run after the police filed a case against her. Basnet was held responsible for misusing the money of Nawalpur-based Chhipchhipe Cooperative, the money which had been invested in a resort she was operating. Interestingly, she was held responsible even though it was not her but her brother-in-law who had brought the money into the organisation. By comparison, the case against Lamichhane is more straightforward. Besides evidence of funds misuse, there is also paper evidence of millions of rupees being deposited into his personal bank account from the account of a cooperative. Legal experts say there is enough evidence to book Lamichhane for cooperative fraud under Cooperative Act, fraud and duping under the National Penal Code, organised crime under the Organised Crime Prevention Act and money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

This is not a question of exacting revenge against a political opponent, as some RSP leaders have tried to paint the case against Lamichhane. For Home Minister Lekhak and the administration, it is rather a matter of applying the law fairly. The government is already pursuing action against the other individuals who had been accused alongside Lamichhane in the same case. While a diffusion notice has been issued against GB Rai, others are in judicial custody. Lamichhane has thus far been let off the hook because of his political manoeuvrings. Now that the Cabinet has given Lekhakh the green signal to press ahead, he should diligently pursue the case to its end. How he pursues the culprits flagged by the parliamentary committee in the cooperatives scam, including Lamichhane, will define his success or failure as home minister.