Ending weeks of speculation, Rastriya Swatantra Party chair and former deputy prime minister Rabi Lamichhane has finally been arrested.

The police on Friday evening apprehended Lamichhane to investigate charges of cooperative fraud and organised crime.

A police team deployed from the Central Investigation Bureau arrested Lamichhane from his party’s head office at Banasthali in Kathmandu. The police subsequently took him to Pokhara—which is 200km west of Kathmandu—by road for the trial as the case against him was filed at the District Police Office, Kaski.

Earlier in the evening, the Kaski District Court permitted the police to arrest Lamichhane. The bench also permitted the police to arrest 13 others—Bishal Tamang, Navin Achhami, Rabina Rimal, Ashraf Ali Siddiqui, Dipak Lama, Ananta Babu Rai, Ram Bahadur Khanal, Devendra Babu Rai, Bigyan Rai, Om Prakash Gurung, Bir Bahadur Ranabhat, Deepa Neupane, and Kalpana Kumari Shrestha—in connection with fraud cases related to the Pokhara-based Suryadarshan Cooperative.

A parliamentary special probe committee formed in May to investigate crisis-ridden cooperatives concluded that Lamichhane was involved in misusing millions of rupees funnelled into Gorkha Media Network from various cooperatives when he was the managing director of the now-defunct media company that ran Galaxy 4K Television. This happened before he joined politics in June 2022.

Also, other investigations conducted by police and Pokhara Metropolitan City, among others, had established Lamichhane’s involvement in misusing public money deposited in several cooperatives.

Lamichhane’s arrest had been on the cards, mainly after police arrested former deputy inspector general (DIG) Chhabi Lal Joshi on September 22 from Kathmandu on the charge of misappropriating funds of Suryadarshan Savings and Credit Cooperative Limited in Pokhara. Joshi was one of the founders of the media company.

Kaski police have since recorded Joshi’s statements, extending his remand multiple times from the Kaski District Court.

How the arrest happened

Rumours were doing the rounds since Friday morning about Lamichhane’s arrest. Interestingly, all seven judges at the Kaski District Court were absent until afternoon. Six of them were on leave and Judge Krishna Jung Shah, who was in Nepalgunj, was preparing to come to Pokhara on a flight but couldn’t come due to bad weather. Also, the registrar, Rajan Khanal, was absent from the court.

A police team that reached the court seeking permission to arrest Lamichhane was made to wait. Suraj Adhikari, information officer for the court, said all the seven judges were absent from the court for the very first time.

Finally, Judge Shah landed in Pokhara airport at around 2:30 pm and reached the court at 3 pm. The police team submitted to him necessary documents including the reports of the special parliamentary probe committee and the CIB, among others, and sought permission to arrest 14 suspects including Lamichhane.

At around 5 pm, the single bench of Judge Krishna Jung Shah granted police the permission to arrest Lamichhane following a request for an arrest warrant from the District Police Office, Kaski.

After securing the court’s permission, the Kaski police wrote to the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police requesting the latter to arrest Lamichhane and send him to Kaski for trial. The letter was addressed to the CIB, the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office, and the Kathmandu District Police Range.

The police then handed over the arrest warrant to Lamichhane, who signed on the paper at around 6:45 pm.

The legal course

The RSP chief will be presented before Kaski District Court on Sunday for an extension of his custody. It is the court’s discretion to decide how long he can be kept in custody. There is a practice of allowing one week of custody for the first time.

However, it can be extended for up to 60 days as the police are investigating him for organised crime in addition to cooperative fraud, as per the criminal code. Such a remand is 28 days in other fraud cases.

If police wish to investigate him on money laundering, Lamichhane’s custody can be extended until 90 days. “The police has to complete its investigation within the prescribed time and submit its report to the Kaski District Attorney Office. The attorney office will lodge the case at the district court,” senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi told the Post.

It is up to the district court to decide whether to keep Lamichhane in judicial custody or release him on a bail until the verdict is issued.

Even as Lamichhane has been arrested, he will continue to be a member of parliament and party president. As per the regulations of the House of Representatives, no lawmaker is suspended until s/he faces judicial custody or is convicted. So Lamichhane will remain as a member of the lower house until he is sent to judicial custody.

He will not lose the position even if he is convicted in the criminal charges he is facing. “Any lawmaker convicted in any criminal offence will remain suspended during the period of his/her jail term,” reads section 248 (4) of the regulation. Even as such lawmakers do not lose their position they don’t receive any pay and perks during the period of their suspension.

Similarly, Lamichhane can remain party president so long as he is not convicted. “There is no legal obstruction for him to continue as party president until he is convicted,” said Tripathi. “That said, there is ample evidence for him to be convicted.”

In March last week, Inspector General of Nepal Police Basanta Kunwar, at a parliamentary committee meeting, had claimed that police investigation hadn’t found any evidence of Lamichhane’s involvement in cooperative fraud. The then home minister Lamichhane was also present at the State Affairs Committee meeting.

Later the lower house formed the special parliamentary probe committee that came up with a report that called for action against Lamichhane, and several others, as per the law.

The report has said over Rs63 billion was embezzled by cooperative owners from various crisis-ridden cooperatives across the country. It has recommended prosecuting four individuals, including Lamichhane, the then managing director of Gorkha Media Network; chairman Gitendra Babu (GB) Rai; a board member Kumar Ramtel; and initial founder of the company Chhabi Lal Joshi.

The special probe committee was formed on May 28. The seven-member committee was formed as per the demand of the then main opposition Nepali Congress that had been demanding such a committee to probe cooperative fraud and had even been obstructing parliamentary proceedings demanding the same.

Lamichhane’s defence

After the arrest warrant was issued, Lamichhane posted on social media, venting his ire against the government and expressing his commitment to fully cooperate with the investigation process.

Lamichhane criticised the government for its alleged hypocrisy, stating corrupt leaders are being protected while ordinary citizens, like himself, are being charged unfairly.

“The government has died, and we are in mourning. Your [Prime Minister Oli’s] wristwatch is worth millions, while I wear handcuffs. You serve middlemen and wear expensive glasses and shoes gifted by smugglers, while I carry the burden of accusations. You take land worth millions from proven corrupt figures, and I’m the one being accused of fraud,” Lamichhane wrote on social media.

Lamichhane accused the government of misusing state power to protect its leaders and failing to to hold corrupt figures accountable, even in the face of clear evidence. He also accused the ruling parties of trying to protect its leaders, even the general public and victims of corruption are denied justice.

Meanwhile, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) termed the party chief’s arrest a politically motivated move.

In a press statement issued on Friday, the party expressed strong objection to the arrest and claimed that a parliamentary investigation committee had already cleared Lamichhane of any involvement in cooperative fraud.

“We strongly condemn the arrest of our party chairperson, Rabi Lamichhane. The arrest, despite the parliamentary committee confirming no involvement in the cooperative fraud case, is a step driven by political vendetta,” the statement read.

The party maintained its commitment to the rule of law, asserting that it was prepared to help in the investigation. However, it also criticised the use of legal loopholes for political vendetta against Lamichhane and the RSP.

“However, we will not tolerate politically motivated vendetta against our chairperson by exploiting legal loopholes,” the statement added.

The party also linked the arrest to larger scandals, accusing political rivals of orchestrating the attack on its ‘political movement’. “Political parties that have looted billions in cases such as Giribandhu [Tea Estate], the Bhutanese refugee scam, Teramocs, and the wide-body aircraft scandal are now attacking our political movement. We are neither scared nor intimidated,” the statement added.

RSP acting spokesperson Manish Jha called on the public to stay vigilant against political conspiracies.

Tripathi, the senior advocate, however rubbishes the allegation from the RSP leadership and other opposition parties that his arrest was politically motivated.

He says it is nothing but a political stunt to blame Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli or Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak for the arrest. “Lamichhane should have been arrested long back but he as a home minister misused his authority to avoid arrest and investigation. Let law take its course and court take the right verdict,” he said. “It is wrong to politicise the case when there is adequate evidence to establish his wrongdoing.”