The Office of the Attorney General has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Janakpur High Court's decision to acquit Ram Bahadur Bomjon, the self-proclaimed ascetic, in a case involving allegations of child sexual abuse.
The appeal was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday, as confirmed by the court’s information officer, Nirajan Pandey.
“The appeal has been received. It wasn’t registered yesterday, but it will be today,” he said.
On March 19 this year, a bench of Judges Narishwar Bhandari and Khemraj Bhatta at the Janakpur High Court acquitted Bomjon of the charge of child sexual abuse.
Previously, on July 1, 2024, a single bench of Judge Jeevan Kumar Bhandari at the Sarlahi District Court had sentenced Bomjon to 10 years in prison and ordered him to pay Rs 500,000 in compensation to the victim.
The high court acquitted Bomjon, overturning the district court’s decision.
After the full text of the high court’s verdict was made public, the Janakpur High Government Attorney’s Office sent a letter to the Office of the Attorney General recommending an appeal.
On July 23, the Office of the Attorney General decided to appeal the high court’s ruling, according to its spokesperson and Joint Attorney Uddhav Prasad Pudasaini.
“On July 22, it was decided to appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that the high court’s decision was erroneous and should be overturned, and that Bomjon should be punished as per the charges,” Pudasaini said. “The district court sentenced him to 10 years in prison and Rs 500,000 in compensation, but the high court dismissed the charge sheet itself, stating that the statute of limitations had expired.”
The Office of the Attorney General has argued that the high court overlooked provisions regarding the statute of limitation in the Act Relating to Children while acquitting Bomjon.
“In cases where no case has been filed pursuant to sub-section (1), notwithstanding anything contained in the prevailing law, the statute of limitation for filing a case with respect to offenses against a child shall continue to exist until one year after such a child has attained the age of eighteen years,” Section 74(2) of the Act states.
In other words, cases involving crimes against children can be filed up to one year after the victim turns 18.
The Office of the Attorney General contends that the high court ignored this legal provision.
“In this incident, too, the case was filed within the statute of limitation, therefore the high court’s decision is flawed,” Pudasaini said.
In this case, the victim, Gangamaya, was 13 years old when she went to Bomjon’s ashram from Rautahat. The charge alleges that Bomjon raped her on the night of August 4, 2016, at the ashram.
Two years later, in August 2018, Gangamaya came to Kathmandu and disclosed the incident at a press conference.
After holding the press conference, she approached the Metropolitan Crime Investigation Division (now the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office). The police refused to register her complaint, stating that the statute of limitations had expired. At the time, rape cases had to be filed within six months of the incident.
Two days later, the Act Relating to Children was certified, and the case against Bomjon was prepared based on this law.
The Office of the Attorney General has cited the Supreme Court’s Decision No. 7432 as a precedent, according to Joint Attorney Pudasaini.
The precedent, from the Nepal Government vs Uttam Lama case, states: “If an act was considered an offense at the time it was committed and continues to be an offense under a later law, and if the investigation procedure follows the later law, it does not adversely affect the criminal liability of the accused.”
In the case related to Decision No. 7432, Charimaya was sold into prostitution in Mumbai, India, by Khaiba Syangtan and Uttam Syangtan (Lama) in August 1986 for Rs 35,000. Twelve years later, Charimaya returned to Nepal and filed a case against them. The Makawanpur District Court and the then-Hetauda Appellate Court convicted both, sentencing them to imprisonment.
Uttam appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the complaint and charge sheet should be dismissed as they were filed under a law enacted after the incident.
When Charimaya was trafficked, the Muluki Ain (Civil Code) was in effect. The human trafficking section of the Civil Code prohibited selling or luring any person outside Nepal’s borders with the intention of selling them. The punishment was up to 20 years imprisonment, and there was no statute of limitations for such offenses according to judicial provisions in Section 36 of the Civil Code.
A law enacted in 1986 to control human trafficking introduced a lesser punishment than the Civil Code.
A full bench of the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts’ decisions, sentencing Uttam to 10 years in prison. Justices Hari Prasad Sharma and Anup Raj Sharma (with a dissenting opinion from Justice Balaram KC) ruled that the punishment handed to Uttam was correct, citing two grounds.
They upheld the punishment under the new law, ruling that both the old and new laws recognized human trafficking as an offense, and that the lesser punishment under the new law did not adversely affect Uttam. They also ruled that since filing of complaints, scope of case, prosecution, and determining weight of evidence are procedural matters, the law that is in effect when a case is ongoing or was enacted before an incident applies to them.
Setopati began investigative reporting after Gangamaya held the press conference and exposed Bomjon. The investigation revealed not only the rape of Gangamaya but also that Bomjon had physically and mentally tortured three nuns from Nuwakot, Makawanpur, and Sarlahi, later making them disappear, and had killed a man from Makawanpur.
Following this, the parents of the missing nuns—Rita Bote, Karma Tamang (Chunmaya), and Phoolmaya Rumba from Makawanpur—filed complaints. The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police initiated an investigation and filed a case. Bomjon fled from his ashram but was arrested by police from his Budhanilkantha residence on January 9, 2024.
During his arrest, police recovered currencies of 17 different countries equivalent to Rs 3,092,406 and Nepali currency worth Rs 33.4 million.
After the amount was recovered, a case was filed in the Sarlahi District Court, claiming damages of NPR 85.9 million. The claimed amount included Bomjon’s land worth Rs 6.4 million in Chitwan and the seized amount.
On May 27, a bench of Judge Jeevan Kumar Bhandari ordered Bomjon to be held in custody for further investigation.
