The Kaski District Court has granted police permission to hold Rabi Lamichhane in custody for an additional 10 days to support further investigation.

On Tuesday, the court extended the detention period, which includes the Tihar holiday.

Lamichhane has already spent 5 days in custody, so he will remain in detention for another 5 days.

Although Lamichhane’s extended remand expired on October 30, he remained in custody due to the Tihar festival, which started on October 31.

Alongside Lamichhane, Chabilal Joshi and Leela Pachai have also been granted detention for the same duration.

Meanwhile, police are preparing to transfer Lamichhane to Rupandehi (Butwal) for further investigation related to the Supreme Cooperative fraud.

The District Court, Kaski, on October 24, had previously remanded former Home Minister Lamichhane to seven days in custody for the second time. He was arrested in connection with the Pokhara-based Suryadarshan Cooperative's fund embezzlement case on October 18. Lamichhane has been in custody for the investigation on fraud, organized crime and money laundering allegations.

A police team from the Central Investigation Bureau arrested Lamichhane at his party’s head office in Banasthali, Kathmandu. They subsequently transported him by road to Pokhara—200 km west of Kathmandu—for trial, as the case was filed at the District Police Office, Kaski.

A parliamentary special probe committee, formed in May to investigate crisis-ridden cooperatives, concluded that Lamichhane was involved in misusing millions of rupees funneled into Gorkha Media Network from various cooperatives when he was managing director of the now-defunct media company that operated Galaxy 4K Television. This alleged misuse occurred before he entered politics in June 2022.