CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli has asked reporters to ask Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balen Shah about the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate land swap scam.
“Ask Balen,” Oli quipped when asked about the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate land swap scam by reporters as he came out after the House of Representatives (HoR) meeting on Monday.
Kathmandu Mayor Shah has been confronting Physical Infrastructure and Transport Minister Raghubir Mahaseth, who is from UML, about expansion of footpath in the New Road. Shah took to social media Monday morning to accuse Oli of land swap scam and urged him to return the advance taken for selling land of the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate.
Leaders of the main opposition party Nepali Congress (NC) have also been making allegations against Oli in the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate land swap scam.
The Supreme Court (SC) a few months back had overturned the decision of the then Oli government to allow the Jhapa-based Giri Bandhu Tea Estate to swap land exceeding the legal ownership ceiling in any other place within Koshi province.
The court’s constitutional bench led by Bishowambhar Prasad Shrestha had ruled that the April 26, 2021 decision of the Oli Cabinet contravened Section 12 (C) of the Land Act 1964 and was immature.
The land reform policy of the government six decades back had set a ceiling for individual ownership of land and confiscated all the land beyond that limit. It had, however, allowed companies and industries to keep land beyond the limit but required that the land be used only for the stipulated purpose and banned sale of such land.
The Oli government had taken the decision to allow the tea estate to swap its expensive land in Birtamode with land at any other place within Koshi Province, and sell the valuable land in Birtamode or use it for other purposes.
