The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a writ petition filed against the donation of land by Bhatbhateni Supermarket owner Min Bahadur Gurung to CPN-UML for construction of its party office.
A bench of Justices Abdul Aziz Musalman and Bal Krishna Dhakal dismissed the petition on Monday, SC spokesperson Achyut Kuikel said.
Hearing on the petition, filed by advocate Gyan Bahadur Basnet on October 23, had been deferred repeatedly.
Earlier, on October 28, a single bench of Justice Sunil Kumar Pokharel had issued a short-term interim order to not carry out any work including transfer of ownership of the land donated to UML by Gurung until another decision. It had also issued a show cause order to the defendants and summoned both sides for discussion on November 11 to decide whether to continue the interim order or not.
Advocate Basnet had approached the apex court with a writ petition demanding revocation of UML’s decision to accept donation of the land from businessman Gurung, who is accused of corruption and forging government documents.
The SC administration initially refused to register the petition. On October 18, Basnet filed a petition against the court administration’s decision.
A bench of Judge Til Prasad Shrestha then revoked the court administration’s decision and ordered it to register Basnet’s petition.
Advocate Basnet had made Gurung and the UML party office defendants in the petition. He had said in the petition that the party's decision to accept donation of the land from a businessmen accused of corruption and of converting government land into private property was against ethics and the spirit of the law.
He had also demanded a mandamus to make donations made and received in the name of politics and political parties transparent.
On October 11, Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli laid the foundation stone for the party's central office building at Maitrinagar in Kirtipur Municipality-2.
The UML central office is being built on 10 ropanis and 14 annas of land donated to UML by businessman Gurung and his wife Sabitri Gurung.
