Tek Narayan Pandey, the then secretary who is in custody in the fake Bhutanese refugees case, has filed a habeas corpus petition at the Supreme Court.
His wife Manju Pandey filed the petition on his behalf at the Supreme Court on Friday.
Pandey's petition was scheduled to be heard by a bench of Chief Justice Prakash Man Singh Raut on Sunday. But hearing on the petition has been deferred for Monday.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Kathmandu District Court, the Office of the Attorney General, the District Government Attorney's Office, and the District Police Range, Kathmandu, have been named as defendants in the petition.
The Kathmandu District Court had sent Pandey and 15 others to custody on June 16, 2023.
Pandey was accused of involvement in the racket that swindled tens of millions of rupees from Nepali citizens promising to send them to the United States of America as Bhutanese refugees.
On May 24, 2023, the District Government Attorney’s Office had filed a case against them on charges of fraud, document forgery, crimes against the state, and organized crime.
On December 1, 2023, the Patan High Court had ordered Pandey, former deputy prime minister and energy minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Indrajit Rai, and others to be kept in custody.
