Kathmandu District Court on Sunday ordered the release of all 18 people arrested in connection with the Lalita Niwas land grab scam.

On August 27, the District Attorney Office, Kathmandu had filed cases against 310 individuals, including the arrested 18 people, on charge of forging government documents to transfer the government-owned land of Lalita Niwas, Baluwatar, in the names of many individuals.

A single bench of District Court Judge Bhola Nath Dhakal on Sunday ordered the release of 17 on bail and one on general date, according to a copy of the court's order obtained by the Post. “The 17 defendants will be released once they pay the bail amount,” said Dipak Dahal, information officer at the District Court, Kathmandu.

Among those ordered to be released on bail are Bhatbhateni Development Company owner Min Bahadur Gurung, then director general of Department of Land Reform and Management Rudra Kumar Shrestha, and then chief of Dilli Bazar Land Revenue Office Kaladhar Deuja.

According to the court, the bail amount was fixed depending on the degree of alleged offences.

The court set the highest bail amount—Rs24.6 million—for Bhatbhateni owner Gurung.

According to the court, Gurung and his company still owned the majority of 112 ropanies of land that had been returned to Shailaja Rana, claiming that the Panchayat regime had previously seized that land. The prosecutor (District Attorney Office, Kathmandu) has claimed that the land was in fact acquired by the Panchayat government by providing compensation though Rana’s family claimed it had been seized by the authorities.

Likewise, the court has sought Rs1.5 million in bail from Deuja, then chief of Dillibazar Land Revenue Office. The lowest bail—Rs110,000—has been sought from defendants Baburaja Maharjan, Dev Narayan Maharjan, Sakalananda Maharjan and Sanjaya Kumar Maharjan each.

The court has fixed bail amount of Rs330,000 and Rs750,000 for some defendants. The court has ordered that those who failed to submit bail amount be kept in judicial custody.

It has ordered Keshav Tuladhar, a defendant in the case, to be released on general date because he was made defendant for the purpose of recovering the land only.

According to the court, Tuladhar has told the court that he is ready to return the land. Even though the District Attorney Office has charged the defendants for causing loss of billions of rupees, the District Court has set a relatively small amount in bail.

The court said that the majority of those who are defendants in case for forgery of the government documents are also defendants in the corruption cases filed by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority. Majority of them were released on bail by the Special Court.

On the other hand, fixing bail based only on the nature of the offence and losses they are accused of causing to the government would mean they would be subject to fight prosecution by staying in prison which is against the legal principle regarding releasing the defendants on bail. For example, the prosecutor has chargesheeted Bhatbhateni owner Gurung for causing losses of Rs4.91 billion to the government.

Fixing the bail amount beyond the financial means of the defendant means continuing to keep the defendants in the prison. The meaning of demanding bail amount is to ensure that the defendant attends the court when ordered.

Even though the District Attorney Office registered a case against 310 individuals on August 27, the majority of them are at large, according to the charge sheet.

Of the total accused of forgery, 52 have been made defendants just for the purpose of recovering government lands. Twenty-one deceased persons are also on the list of defendants against whom no penalty has been sought. But the objective is again to recover lands from those who inherited the government-owned lands of Lalita Niwas, according to the charge sheet.

Those prosecuted for forgery include former deputy prime minister Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar; former ministers Chandra Deo Joshi, Dambar Bahadur Shrestha and Chhabi Raj Pant; and former minister of state Sanjay Sah. Likewise, sitting government secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut and joint secretary Sushil Vaidya have also been made defendants in the case. The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) had, however, recommended not to register a case against Raut.

Former chief commissioner of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority Deep Basnyat and former government secretaries Dineshhari Adhikari, Narayan Gopal Malego and Yubaraj Bhusal, among others, too have been prosecuted for forgery, according to the charge sheet. Likewise, middlemen Shobhakant Dhakal and Ram Kumar Subedi, and Bhatbhateni Supermarket owner Gurung are other defendants who the police had identified as key architects of the land scam.