The Kathmandu District Attorney’s Office on Friday filed a case at the Kathmandu District Court against three individuals in connection with the defamatory content published by sidhakura.com, a Kathmandu-based news website.

The attorney’s office filed the case against the news portal’s publisher Yubaraj Kandel, executive editor Nabin Dhungana and Rajkumar Timilsina, who has been accused of producing the fake audio content.

The state prosecutor has demanded that the defendants be sentenced to five years in jail and pay a fine of Rs100,000 or face both.

According to Sandesh Shrestha, chief of the Kathmandu District Attorney’s Office, the case was filed in accordance with the Electronic Transactions Act 2008 and section 168 of the Criminal Code 2017.

On April 27, an audiovisual content, claiming that the chairpersons of two leading media houses—Kantipur Publications Limited and Annapurna Media Network—were part of a meeting with an incumbent and former Supreme Court justices and senior advocates to dismiss over 400 corruption cases in the court, was aired on sidhakura.com.

A division bench of Supreme Court justices Nahakul Subedi and Tek Prasad Dhungana, on April 29, rubbished the legitimacy of the published material, concluding that it was a malicious attempt to defame the judiciary, obstruct the judicial proceedings and scandalise the court.

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police was then asked to carry out forensic tests to check the authenticity of the audio-visual material. The police investigation team later confirmed that it was fabricated.

The case was then forwarded to the Supreme Court’s extended full bench for a final hearing, stressing the need for a comprehensive judicial interpretation of freedom of expression and press freedom.

The police moved the district court per the top court’s order that asked the security agency to investigate the factual and technical aspects of the audio-visual materials (forensic test) and to proceed with legal action and submit a report to the court, if it is found that the prevailing criminal law has been violated.