Appearing before a joint bench of Justices Sarga Subedi and Sunil Kumar Pokharel
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A hearing has been scheduled for the hearing of the writ petition against Attorney General Savita Bhandari's decision to amend the charge sheet against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) President Rabi Lamichhane for money laundering and organized crime.
The hearing has been scheduled for a joint bench of Supreme Court Justices Sarga Subedi and Sunil Kumar Pokharel.
Earlier, on February 10, a bench of Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Shrikant Poudel had sent the case for a full hearing. In a writ petition filed on Thursday by senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi, law students Ayush Badal and Yubaraj Poudel Safal, the decision of the Attorney General's Office has been quashed, calling it 'prima facie illegal, malicious and arbitrary'.
Attorney General Savita Bhandari had decided to amend the charge sheet on December 10, 2005, to remove the claims of 'organized crime' and 'money laundering' in the cases filed against Lamichhane in the Kaski, Kathmandu, Rupandehi and Parsa district courts.
The decision argued that Lamichhane was charged with 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 charges, the writ petitioner claims that this is in fact 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 cause irreparable damage to the country.
It has also been argued that amending the charges in cases like organized crime and money laundering that cannot be settled will deprive thousands of savers of their right to justice.
