The Special Court on Thursday convicted over 100 individuals including former government secretaries in the illegal transfer of government land at Baluwatar as personal assets of private individuals, while acquitting the political leaders involved in making the decisions. It has also ordered confiscation of land from 65 individuals.

After three weeks of hearing in the case lodged by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, a full bench of the court comprising Khusi Prasad Tharu, Ram Bahadur and Ritendra Thapa convicted Deep Basnyat and Chhabi Raj Pant, former government secretaries, among others, for creating fake tenants for the land, and also officials of Dillibazar Land Management Office including Kaladhar Deuja for their collusive involvement.

Also convicted were Rukma Shumsher Rana, son of the late Nepali Congress leader Subarna Shumsher Rana, middlemen in the case Ram Kumar Subedi and Sobha Kanta Dhakal, as well as prominent businessman and Bhatbhateni Supermarket owner Min Bahadur Gurung for acquiring the land through illegal means. All of them have been sentenced to two years in jail though the fine amounts imposed on them vary from Rs8.48 million to Rs7.5 million.

“The court has ordered that the land be brought under the government from private possession,” said Dhan Bahadur Karki, spokesperson at the court. A total of 113 ropani (5.75 hectares) of land under the names of 65 individuals will come into the government’s possession following the verdict.

The court, however, has acquitted former deputy prime minister and minister for physical infrastructure and transport Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar, and two former land reforms ministers Dambar Shrestha and Chandra Dev Joshi in the infamous Lalita Niwas scam even though the decisions for land transfer were taken when they were ministers.

The commission had sought to recover Rs96.57 million each from Gachchhadar and Shrestha, and Rs70.84 million from Joshi, in addition to jail terms.

“It would be unfair to implicate some while sparing other signatories in the same Cabinet decision,” reads a clause of the verdict, adding that the ministers were responsible for ‘policy decisions’. Cabinet decisions are considered policy decisions and cannot be investigated by the constitutional anti-graft watchdog

The commission, on February 5, 2020 had lodged cases against 175 people including the three ministers in the scam. It had spared former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Baburam Bhattarai though the decisions to illegally transfer the government land into private hands were taken during their tenures.

Though Nabin Poudel, son of CPN-UML leader Bishnu Poudel, and Kumar Regmi, a Supreme Court justice, had also acquired portions of the land, the commission had not implicated them stating that they had pledged to return the illegally purchased property. They had returned their land plots two days after the case was lodged at the court.

Legal experts say the Special Court’s verdict to spare the political leadership isn’t convincing. “It is a given that government employees and middlemen on their own would not have dared to hatch the plot to transfer the government’s property to private individuals without the political leadership’s support,” argued senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi. “As the court’s ruling is not fully in line with the commission’s demand, I believe the decision will be challenged in the Supreme Court.”

In earlier cases of former Nepali Congress leaders Khum Bahadur Khadka and JP Gupta, the apex court had overturned the Special Court's ruling. The Special Court’s decision to acquit the duo of corruption charges was overturned by the highest court.

Tripathi said the court’s exculpation of the political leadership by terming illegal Cabinet decisions as policy decisions cannot be justified. Last August, the Supreme Court had also opened the door to investigate the Nepal and Bhattarai duo. The commission had already filed the case by the time the apex court made the decision on the two former prime ministers.

The Nepal Cabinet had allowed the transfer of government land to individuals. Similarly, the Bhattarai Cabinet had allowed the registration of the land in the name of a fake trust named Pashupati Tikinchha Guthi. Nepal was prime minister from May 25, 2009 to February 6, 2011. Similarly, Bhattarai had served as prime minister from August 29, 2011 to March 14, 2012.

The Panchayat government on different occasions in the past had brought 300 ropani (15.26 hectares) of land under the state. This plot was first bought by former Rana Prime Minister Bhim Shumsher and later came under the possession of Subarna Shumsher, the Nepali Congress leader.

The royal regime seized 14 ropani (7,122 square metres) of land from Lalita Niwas as Subarna was a top leader of the Congress, which was then a banned organisation. However, the government acquired 284 ropani as per the Land Acquisition Act 1961 by paying Rs1.63 million in compensation. The land was brought under private ownership by creating fake tenants and trusts (guthi) at various times.

The constitutional commission had started investigations into the case in early 2019 based on the report of a committee headed by former secretary Sharada Prasad Trital that had looked into irregularities in the government, public, and guthi-owned land. The committee had discovered that 136 ropani of government land had been illegally registered in the name of private individuals. The then government headed by KP Sharma Oli had constituted the probe committee.