Police on Friday arrested Hari Narayan Rauniyar, owner of the notorious Pappu Construction, from Kathmandu on fraud charges. Rauniyar, who is also a former lawmaker, is accused of committing fraud while unlawfully selling a crusher plant in Banke district.

“We arrested Rauniyar from Kathmandu late on Friday afternoon,” confirmed Senior Superintendent Dinesh Raj Mainali, spokesman for the Kathmandu Valley Police Office. “We are in the process of handing him over to the District Police Office, Banke.”

Rauniyar, whose company is infamous for occupying a high number of construction contracts and delivering shoddy work, is accused of committing fraud by selling the crusher plant whose purchase and sale was earlier barred by the District Court, Banke.

Superintendent Santosh Singh Rathore, chief of the District Police Office Banke, said that the Banke District Court had issued an arrest warrant against Rauniyar and his son—Sumit for allegedly selling the Jaya Bhole Baba Crusher Plant through deception. “We had written to both Kathmandu Valley Police Office and Parsa District Police Office to arrest them and Hari Narayan Rauniyar was arrested accordingly,” he said.

Rauniyar was elected to the House from Parsa-3 in the parliamentary elections of 2017.

Based on the complaint registered by Shobha Ram Yadav, a resident of Kohalpur Municipality-14, police had sought an arrest warrant from the district court against Rauniyar and his son Sumit.

As per Yadav’s complaint, he had purchased the plant based at Janaki Rural Municipality-6, Banke for Rs16.5 million. The two sides had signed a sales agreement on January 30, 2020.

But, two months before the agreement was signed, the Banke District Court had blocked the purchase and sale of the crusher plant as per the petition registered by Dhan Bahadur Thing. Rathore said that Thing’s business deal with Rauniyar is so far unknown to the police.

“But Rauniyar failed to inform Yadav about the court order before they signed the purchase-sale agreement,” said Rathore. “As per Yadav’s complaint, he had already paid cash amounting to Rs9.5 million to Rauniyar while issuing a cheque bearing Rs7 million in addition.”

The Rauniyar duo also faces corruption cases at the Special Court for building a substandard bridge across the Babai river in Jabdighat, Bardiya. The anti-graft commission in October 2018, had filed corruption cases against Rauniyar and his son Sumit, leading to Rauniyar’s suspension as lawmaker.