Speaker Devraj Ghimire has instructed the parliament secretariat to forward the cooperative investigation report submitted by a probe committee to the House of Representatives to the government for implementation.

The seven-member parliamentary special committee formed to probe the cooperatives scam submitted its report to the House at a meeting of the lower house on Monday.

The parliament had formed the special inquiry committee on May 28 to investigate the embezzlement of deposits in dozens of cooperatives around the country.

Following the presentation of the report to the House of Representatives by committee chairperson Surya Thapa on Monday, Speaker Ghimire directed the secretariat to send it to the government for implementation.

After rigorous investigation for over three months, the inquiry committee has concluded that former deputy prime minister and home minister Rabi Lamichhane was found involved in embezzling millions of rupees from multiple cooperatives when he was the managing director at the Gorkha Media Network, before he joined politics in June 2022.

The committee has suggested the government to take action against Rastriya Swatantra Party chairman Lamichhane as per the existing laws for his alleged involvement in the embezzlement of the money deposited at various cooperatives by common people. Various studies including the investigation by the House committee have shown that nearly a billion rupees was taken from several cooperatives and invested in the media company, which was co-founded and jointly run by GB (Gitendra Babu) Rai and Lamichhane, among others. Police in January issued a diffusion notice against Rai, who has been on the run.

The committee has also concluded that the office bearers of the Gorkha Media Network had used forged documents while transferring shares of the company and suggested the government to further investigate the matter in detail and take necessary actions.

The report, prepared and approved unanimously by the committee, was submitted to the House after consultation with Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Sunday.

The Thapa-led seven-member committee has Sarita Bhusal of the UML, Ishwori Devi Neupane and Dilendra Prasad Badu of Nepali Congress, Lekhnath Dahal of the CPN (Maoist Centre), Shishir Khanal of the Rastriya Swatantra Party and Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party as members.