Hearing on the petition filed against Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane and Attorney General Dinmani Pokharel has been adjourned due to lack of time.
A bench of Supreme Court Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Saranga Subedi has scheduled another hearing on the petition for June 30 as the hearing could not be completed on Friday.
Lawyers representing the petitioner and the Office of the Attorney General presented their arguments on Friday. According to Govinda Ghimire, joint spokesperson for the Supreme Court, Home Minister Lamichhane’s lawyers have yet to present their arguments.
Responding to the petition, the Supreme Court had earlier ordered documents related to a fraud case involving Supreme Cooperative to be presented in court. A bench of Justices Manoj Kumar Sharma and Til Prasad Shrestha had sought documents related to the case, which was registered at the Rupandehi District Court by the government attorney.
The apex court had then sought the complaint said to have been filed against Home Minister Lamichhane in Pokhara. But police informed the court that no complaints had been filed against him.
The Office of the Attorney General had issued a letter on May 6 stating that it found no complaint lodged against Lamichhane when it queried in Rupandehi, Kaski and Chitwan districts.
Advocate Anupam Bhattarai had moved the Supreme Court against that letter but the court’s chief registrar initially refused to register the petition. Bhattarai lodged another petition against the refusal to register his petition against the letter.
Hearing the second petition on May 22, a bench of Justice Tek Prasad Dhungana ordered the court to register Bhattarai’s petition against the letter that gave a clean chit to Lamichhane.
Bhattarai has questioned legality of the letter issued by the Office of the Attorney General and made Lamichhane and Attorney General Din Mani Pokharel defendants in the petition.
