The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has recorded statement of the masterminds of Baluwatar land grab Shobha Kanta Dhakal and Ram Kumar Subedi.
"They first sent an email saying they are in America and Canada and have not absconded when the CIAA issued a notice summoning them for statement," a CIAA source told Setopati. "They came to the CIAA and recorded statement last week."
The constitutional anti-graft body has also recorded statement of former ministers Chhabi Raj Panta and Dambar Shrestha, and a state minister in the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led government. The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police has also recorded statement of Dhakal and Subedi after CIAA.
The probe committee formed by the government under former secretary Sharada Prasad Trital had submitted the report to the government in December 2018 concluding that the land transferred to individuals in Baluwatar belonged to the government.
The committee had advised the government to ask the CIB to investigate how ownership of the land was transferred to individuals and investigate the state of such government land across the country.
CPN General Secretary Bishnu Paudel has been dragged in the scam as eight annas of grabbed land (plot number 309 and 3015) has been transferred to his son from Uma Dhakal and Madhavi Subedi, wives of Shobha Kanta Dhakal and Ram Prasad Subedi identified as land mafia by the Trital committee.
Some CPN leaders citing the then prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal have told Setopati that Paudel facilitated Cabinet decisions to provide grounds for the land grab and had even arranged donation of Rs 40 million to the party in return for the decisions.
The committee stated that the then king Mahendra after the coup in 1961 had confiscated 14 ropanis land of Nepali Congress leader Suvarna Shumsher Rana and his father Kanchan Shumsher in Baluwatar. The government four years later acquired 285 ropanis of Rana's land in Baluwatar by paying compensation.
The PM's residence, chief justice's residence, speaker's residence and the central office of Nepal Rastra Bank are currently situated in 172 ropanis out of that 285 ropanis. Land mafia in connivance with staffers at the Land Revenue Office has transferred ownership of the remaining 113 ropanis of land to different individuals, the committee has concluded.
The land owned by Paudel is out of that 113 ropanis.
