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The Kathmandu District Court has ordered the detention of Ravi Lamichhane, the then managing director of Gorkha Media Network, after Monday's custodial hearing on the Swarnalakshmi Cooperative fraud.
Judge Madhav Prasad Adhikari continued Sunday's order to keep Lamichhane in custody after the detention argument started by Zaherwala failed.
Lamichhane demanded to be released from custody as he came to appear in court on the first day. In response, the judicial officer said that the order of Sunday would be continued and since Tuesday was a public holiday for Maghe Sankranti, the next hearing would be held on Wednesday. On Monday, 9 government lawyers and two lawyers from the prosecutor's side argued against Lamichhane. As the argument on behalf of the victim was not completed, the lawyer of Lamichhane's side could not come.
District Attorney Khadindraraj Katuwal started the argument on behalf of the government. He insisted that since there is strong evidence that Lamichhane embezzled the savings of Swarnalaxmi Cooperative, he should be sent to prison for trial. Katuwal's argument was that Lamichhane took a loan by opening an account in Swarnalakshmi and the proof of it was also found in the software on the server.
District Attorney Chandra Sanjel, Bina Khadka, Head of Public Prosecutor's Office Kathmandu and Associate Attorney Ramhari Sharma and others debated after him. They insisted that as they were accused of being imprisoned for up to 7 years for fraud and up to 10 and a half years for organized crime, they had to follow the rules of criminal justice to run prison for pre-trial detention in cases punishable by more than 3 years according to law.
Judge Adhikari allotted one and a half hours to the public prosecutor and plaintiff's advocate and two hours to the lawyers of Lamichhane for debate. However, the public prosecutor's argument continued till three o'clock in the afternoon. Then senior advocates Surendra Bhandari and Dinesh Tripathi argued on behalf of Zaherwala. Zaherwala's lawyer argued that more than 800 checks were found that Lamichhane had embezzled from the cooperative on different dates and that there is a legal provision that he should be held responsible as the managing director of the company, so he should not be released on bail.
A case was filed in Kathmandu on December 21 against Lamichhane and 39 others on charges of systematically defrauding the 5,500 savers of Swarnalakshmi Cooperative to the tune of 1.19 billion. Lamichhane is accused of misappropriating 50.8 million rupees from Swarnalakshmi Cooperative.
