Secretary at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoCIT) Krishna Bahadur Raut has been arrested in connection with the Baluwatar land grab case.
According to Additional Inspector General Kiran Bajracharya at the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police, Raut was arrested from the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Sunday.
An arrested had already been issued for Raut earlier.
Raut became secretary on January 5, 2022.
Raut is the third individual to be arrested in connection with the case on Sunday. The CIB arrested Lok Hari Ghimire, the then chief of Samarjung Company, and Dhruba Aryal, the then survey officer, earlier in the day.
The CIB had earlier arrested nine persons in connection with the case. It had sought extension of their custody through the District Government Attorney Office, Kathmandu on Tuesday. The Kathmandu District Court granted extension of seven days on Tuesday for investigations on organized crime.
The court had granted custody for seven days for investigations on forgery when the accused were presented to the court on June 28.
The quantum of punishment is higher in case of organized crime than forgery and the police can also get a longer custody for investigations on organized crime.
Accused persons can be kept in custody for up to 60 days for investigations on organized crime while those investigated for forgery can be kept for only up to 25 days, according to Chief of the District Government Attorney Office, Kathmandu Achyut Mani Neupane.
The government had formed a probe committee under former secretary Sharada Prasad Trital following complaints that government land at Baluwatar has been transferred to some individuals. The committee had submitted the report to the government in December 2018 concluding that the land transferred to individuals belonged to the government.
The committee stated that the then king Mahendra after the coup in 1951 had confiscated 14 ropanis land of Nepali Congress leader Suvarna Shumsher Rana and his son Kanchan Shumsher in Baluwatar.
The government four years later acquired 285 ropanis of Rana's land in Baluwatar by paying compensation. The prime minister's residence, chief justice's residence, speaker's residence and the central office of Nepal Rastra Bank are currently situated in 172 ropanis out of the 285 ropanis.
Land mafia in connivance with staffers at the Land Revenue Office has transferred ownership of the remaining 113 ropanis of land to different individuals, the committee has concluded.
CPN-UML leader and former finance minister Bishnu Paudel was also dragged into the controversy as eight annas out of the 113 ropanis has been transferred in the name of his son Navin.
But Paudel and Supreme Court (SC) Justice Kumar Regmi have not been charged in the scam after they agreed to return the land in the name of Paudel's son Navin and Regmi respectively.
"It does not seem necessary to make them defendants as they have agreed to return the land plots inside Lalita Niwas camp to the Nepal Government in their statement to the investigation officer and the application filed with the CIAA," the CIAA charge sheet stated.
Regmi has claimed that he received the land for handling a case while working as advocate while Paudel has claimed that he bought the land.
