Attorney General Savita Bhandari had decided to amend the charge sheet so that the claims of 'organized crime' and 'money laundering' would no longer be upheld in the cases filed in the Kaski, Kathmandu, Rupandehi and Parsa district courts.
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The Supreme Court has postponed the hearing of a writ petition filed against Attorney General Savita Bhandari's decision to amend the chargesheet against Rastriya Swatantra Party President and former Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane and GB Rai for 'money laundering' and 'organized crime'.
The petition was filed before a joint bench of Supreme Court Justices Manoj Kumar Sharma and Bal Krishna Dhakal. However, the hearing was postponed to the next day as the judge was unavailable.
Earlier, a single bench of Justice Abdul Aziz Musalman had sought a written response from the Attorney General's Office on Tuesday. As soon as the written response was received, the Supreme Court was going to schedule the petition and hear it.
In a writ petition filed on Thursday by senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi, law students Ayush Badal and Yubaraj Poudel Safal, it has been demanded to quash the decision of the Attorney General's Office, calling it 'prima facie illegal, malicious and arbitrary'.
Attorney General Savita Bhandari had decided to amend the charge sheet in the cases filed against Lamichhane in the Kaski, Kathmandu, Rupandehi and Parsa district courts on 30 Poush 2082 to remove the claims of 'organized crime' and 'money laundering'. The decision argued that Lamichhane was charged on the basis of political vendetta and that the interests of savers should be prioritized.
Although Section 36 of the Criminal Procedure Code was used as the basis for amending the charge, the writ petitioner claims that this is in practice an act of ‘withdrawing the case’. The writ argues that the decision was a ‘fraudulent use of the law’ when Section 116 of the Code prohibits the withdrawal of money laundering cases.
The writ states that granting immunity in serious economic crimes like money laundering will put Nepal on the blacklist of the International Financial Action Task Force and this will cause irreparable damage to the country.
It has also been argued that amending the charge in cases such as organized crime and money laundering that cannot be settled will deprive thousands of savers of their right to justice.
