The Supreme Court (SC) has assigned a three-strong full bench to hear the review petition registered by the Office of the Attorney General against the SC decision to commute sentence of former APF DIG Ranjan Koirala who was found guilty of murdering his wife.
Justices Bam Kumar Shrestha, Prakash Kumar Dhungana and Kumar Regmi will hear the review petition on Sunday.
The Kathmandu District Court had issued life sentence with confiscation of all properties finding Koirala guilty of pre-meditated murder of his wife Geeta Dhakal and burning the body to destroy evidence and the then Patan Appellate Court had upheld the verdict when Koirala appealed against that.
A joint bench of Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana and Justice Tej Bahadur KC on June 29 commuted Koirala's sentence by 11 years using discretionary powers granted by the Muluki Ain to judges stating life sentence seemed too harsh stating that the wife was the instigator of the incident as she died when he pushed her during a dispute initiated by her, raising of his two sons, who are both over 20 years in age, has been affected when he is in prison and it looked a chance incident.
Koirala was released on Thursday after serving eight and half years.
The Office of the Attorney General has filed the review petition as per constitutional provision. The case will again be reopened after registration of the review petition.
