It has been 3 years since the case was filed in the Kathmandu District Court on charges of creating fake Bhutanese refugees and sending them to the US. However, there is still no sign of the court deciding the case. Some of the defendants in the crime committed with the connivance of high-ranking officials in power, which tarnished the country's international image, are in jail during the pre-trial phase, some are on ordinary dates and some are out of jail after posting bail. The police have been raising questions publicly that some of the 'suspects' have not yet been brought under investigation. Former Foreign Minister Arju Rana Deuba and former MP Manju Khand are also under suspicion in this case. The defendants currently in jail in the refugee case had given statements that they paid money to Manju and that 60 million rupees were paid to Arju through her. However, no detailed investigation could be carried out on this matter. Former Foreign Minister Rana is on the Money Laundering Investigation Department's fugitive list after being dragged into an investigation into a money laundering case. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty as to when the case against other accused who have reached the court will be decided.

Obstruction in the investigation of the fake Bhutanese refugee case

Somkanta Bhandari, Chief (Joint Attorney) of the District Government Attorney's Office, Kathmandu, informed that work is being done to collect documents that may be available from both the plaintiff and defendant sides due to the burning of the documents of the court and the government attorney's office on 24 Bhadra. In the meantime, the court said that on 14 Baisakh, an order was issued to examine evidence on some matters related to the Balkrishna Panthi task force. A presentation has also been scheduled in the case on Monday. He claims that before the Gen-G movement, the case had reached the stage of being heard and settled through regular hearings, but the hearing of the case was affected after the file itself was burned. On 23 Bhadra, the day after the Gen-G movement, the District Court Kathmandu and the District Public Prosecutor's Office Kathmandu were also burned in a violent protest including vandalism and arson. During that time, file documents related to the refugee case were also burned. Officials of the court and the Public Prosecutor's Office claim that the regular hearing has been affected since the court file had to be re-established in the refugee case after the court and the Public Prosecutor's Office were burned.

Based on the investigation report of the District Police Range, Kathmandu, on 10 Jestha 2080, a case was filed in court against 30 people, including former Deputy Prime Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, former Home Minister Balkrishna Khand, former MP Angtawa Sherpa, then Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, and then Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa's security advisor Indrajit Rai, on charges of forgery, fraud, organized crime, and crimes against the state. Of the 18 arrested during the investigation, on 1 Ashad 2080, the bench of then Judge Prem Prasad Neupane sent Rayamajhi, Khand, then Secretary Pandey, then Home Minister's advisor Rai, as well as Bhutanese refugee leader Teknath Rijal, organized gang members Keshav Prasad Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Sagar Rai, Sandesh Sharma, Sandeep Rayamajhi, Narendra KC, Govinda Kumar Chaudhary, Ram Sharan KC, Angtawa Sherpa, Chairman of the Haj Committee under the Ministry of Home Affairs Shamsher Miya and middleman Haribhakta Maharjan to jail for trial and released Tanka Gurung, one of the defendants, on a bail of Rs 1 million and Laxmi Maharjan on a bail of Rs 500,000. The following year, on 9 Baisakh 2081, another supplementary case was filed in court against five people, including gang member Keshav Dulal, on the complaint of Dawafuri Sherpa. The defendant in this case, former Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa's son, Pratik Thapa, was arrested on 14 Ashad 2081, the year after the case was filed. He is also currently in jail pending trial.

During the investigation, another suspect in the refugee case, Bechan Jha, was arrested by the police from the Nepal-India border area of ​​Kanchanpur and brought to Kathmandu. After investigation, another supplementary prosecution case was filed against him in the court on 29 Shrawan 2081. After that, the court ordered that all three cases be combined and heard together.

The defendants who were sent to jail for remand went to the Patan High Court in August 2080 against the district court order. On 15 Mangesh, the high court heard the writ petition and ordered the district court to release Haribhakta Maharjan, Narendra KC, Sandeep Rayamajhi, Teknath Rijal and Ram Sharan KC on bail and Tanka Gurung, Laxmi Maharjan, Ashish Budhathoki and Keshav Tuladhar on ordinary dates. After the high court order, Rayamajhi was released on bail of Rs 3 million, Rijal, Maharjan and Ram Sharan KC on bail of Rs 1.5 million each, and Narendra KC and Shamsher Miya on bail of Rs 1 million each.

High court judges Janak Pandey and Prakash Kharel differed on whether to uphold the district court order to keep another defendant, former Home Minister Khan, in remand or release him on bail. After that, the next hearing was scheduled for 28 Mangsir 2080, and Khand was released after a bench of Justice Krishnaram Koirala ordered him to be released on a bail of 3 million. When the prosecution in the district court mentioned that the defendants should also be investigated by the Money Laundering Investigation Department, Khand, who was released, was also produced before the Money Laundering Investigation Department by a higher order, and he was released after paying a bail of 1.5 million. Meanwhile, the government did not even go to the Supreme Court with an appeal against the order to release Khand on bail. The Attorney General's Office was publicly criticized at the time for not appealing under pressure from the ruling party.

Meanwhile, after the higher order ordered the remand of the remaining defendants, including former Deputy Prime Minister Rayamajhi, the then Secretary Pandey, and the then Home Minister's advisor Rai, to the trial, they appealed to the Supreme Court against this. Hearing the case, a bench of Justices Kumar Regmi and Tek Prasad Dhungana had upheld the higher court order on 13 Baisakh 2081 to keep Angtawa Sherpa and Govinda Chaudhary on bail and Shamsher Miya on ordinary bail and to keep Rayamajhi, Pandey, Bhandari, Dulal, Sandesh, Indrajit and Sagar Rai in custody. After that, the 7 who were ordered to remain in custody, Pratik who was arrested later and Jha who was made a defendant in the supplementary prosecution are also in the Central Jail and Dillibazaar Jail. However, the final verdict of the case is far from being reached, and the work of understanding the evidence for the continued hearing has not been completed yet.

According to the Kathmandu District Court, during the initial custody hearing and order, the bench held 22 times on various dates in 2080, and then the bench held several times and issued orders on the collection of evidence, examination of witnesses, witness statements, filing of supplementary cases, etc. The refugee case was heard only 6 times in 2081. From Asad 17, 2081 to Chaitra 25, it was heard 6 times, while in 2082, it was heard 41 times, and the last time it was heard was 2 times since Baisakh 2083. A re-hearing has been scheduled for Monday.

According to an officer involved in the ongoing debate on behalf of the Government Attorney's Office in the refugee case, on Baisakh 14, the court ordered to seek evidence related to some issues related to the task force led by Balkrishna Panthi. According to the officer, if the court and the Government Attorney's Office had not burned down on Bhadra 24, the case would have entered the continuous hearing stage, but the official he met said that the continuous hearing was delayed because the file had to be filed again because the file itself was burned down due to arson. The matter came under investigation after it was revealed that a gang organized under the guise of managing the remaining refugees who had been displaced from Bhutan and settled in camps in Jhapa and Morang, Nepal, had taken over the machinery of the Ministry of Home Affairs and sent 429 Nepalis to the US under the guise of refugees. The gang, in collusion with the then Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, had forged the report of the task force led by former Joint Secretary Bal Krishna Panthi, which was formed by the government to manage the remaining genuine refugees in the camps in Jhapa and Morang, and had tried to get the government to decide to send some of the money collected in the first lot to the US. In the process, the fake list prepared by the gang was inserted into the Panthi report by altering the schedule of the confidential document of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The crime committed by the then Secretary Pandey in the refugee case was revealed in the same case, and the police investigation also revealed that Khand, Pandey and other government officials had collected money from the gang. In this case, Kantipur had reported the news in detail in Jestha 2079 before the investigation was conducted, but after about 10 months, on Chaitra 2079, powerful people were arrested in the investigation that began with the arrest of the gang's planner Dulal and others.

These are the accused facing the case

1. Sandeep Rayamajhi - Sandhikharka Municipality, Arghakhanchi

2. Tank Kumar Gurung - Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City

3. Mohan Raj Rai - Miklajung Rural Municipality, Panchthar

4. Niranjan Kumar Kharel - Fatuvabijaypur Rural Municipality, Rautahat

5. Keshav Tuladhar - Kathmandu Metropolitan City

6. Haribhakta Maharjan - Lalitpur Metropolitan City

7. Rajesh Aryal – Tarkeshwor Municipality, Kathmandu

8. Angtawa Sherpa – Kathmandu Metropolitan City

9. Binita Savden Limbu – Pathari-Shanishchare Municipality, Morang

10. Sagar Rai – Pathari-Shanishchare Municipality, Morang

11. Ashish Budhathoki – Budhanilkantha Municipality, Kathmandu

12. Keshav Prasad Dulal – Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City-22

13. Sunil Budhathoki – Gauradaha, Jhapa

14. Deepa Humaganji – Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City

15. Indrajit Rai – Godavari-12, Lalitpur

16. Shamsher Miya – Butwal Sub-metropolitan City, Rupandehi

17. Teknarayan Pandey – Kathmandu Metropolitan City

18. Ramsharan KC – Tokha Municipality, Kathmandu

19. Lakshmi Maharjan – Bungmati, Lalitpur

20. Niraj Rai – Godavari, Lalitpur

21. Balkrishna Khan – Kathmandu Metropolitan City

22. Sanu Bhandari – Lalitpur sub-metropolitan city

23. Narendra KC – Bharatpur Metropolitan City, Chitwan

24. Top Bahadur Rayamazhi – Sandhikhark municipality, Arghakhanchi

25. Sandesh Sharma – Godavari Municipality, Lalitpur

26. Ashok Pokharel - Itahari sub-metropolitan city, Sunsari

27. Govind Kumar Chaudhary – Belbari municipality, Morang