The Supreme Court has sought written responses from former prime ministers Baburam Bhattarai and Madhav Kumar Nepal in a writ petition seeking their prosecution in connection with the Lalita Niwas land case.
On Thursday, a full bench comprising Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma and Justices Binod Sharma and Sunil Kumar Pokharel ordered the two former prime ministers to submit written responses.
The respondents have been given 15 days from the date they receive the notice to submit their responses.
The order states that notices, along with copies of the writ petition and the court order, should be issued in the names of Nepal and Bhattarai, asking them to submit written responses either personally or through their legally authorized representatives.
Senior Advocate Bal Krishna Neupane had filed the writ petition on February 20, 2025, seeking prosecution of the two former prime ministers in the Lalit Niwas land case.
He had named both former prime ministers, the Kathmandu District Court, District Government Attorney’s Office, Kathmandu, former chief secretary Leela Mani Paudyal, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the Office of the Attorney General, and the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) as defendants.
The petition had been scheduled for a hearing on August 6.
The bench issued the order on Thursday in the case, which had been kept pending for continued hearing at that time.
