The District Government Attorney's Office is in a state of confusion regarding whether or not to inform Parliament about the money laundering case currently pending against Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President Rabi Lamichhane at the Kaski District Court.
District Attorney Kamala Kafle said that she has not yet reached a decision on whether to notify Parliament about the sub-judice case against Lamichhane. She added that the Parliament Secretariat has not made any inquiries on the matter so far, nor has the Office of the Attorney General issued any directives.
"A money laundering case against him (Rabi Lamichhane) is pending in court. An amendment letter filed to withdraw the case is also under consideration," she said. "No decision has been made regarding whether to inform Parliament that the case is proceeding. Neither the Parliament Secretariat nor the Office of the Attorney General has shown interest."
Section 22 of the Assets (Money) Laundering Prevention Act, 2008, stipulates that once a government attorney decides to file a case, a notice must be published in the Nepal Gazette and the case must be filed in court.
Section 27 of the same act states that public servants, office-bearers, and employees of institutions facing money laundering charges shall be considered automatically suspended during the period of detention and from the time the case is filed until its final settlement.
Based on these provisions, the District Government Attorney's Office, Kaski, had previously informed the Parliament Secretariat regarding the money laundering case against Lamichhane. Following that information, the Parliament Secretariat published a notice and suspended Lamichhane's position as a member of Parliament. After the dissolution of that House of Representatives, Lamichhane was recently re-elected as a lawmaker from Chitwan.
The RSP, of which he is the president, has already formed a government after securing nearly a two-thirds majority in the election. District Attorney Kafle said that it remains unclear whether the Parliament Secretariat will make a decision on the matter based on the letter previously sent or if the District Government Attorney’s Office needs to send a letter again.
"The letter we previously sent is registered at the Parliament Secretariat; they can make further inquiries based on that," she said. "I haven't decided whether we should spontaneously send another letter of the same nature."
The case involving fraud at Pokhara's Suryadarshan Savings and Credit Cooperative, organized crime, and money laundering was registered against Lamichhane at the district court on December 22, 2024. The charge sheet filed by the government attorney's office accuses Lamichhane of laundering 278.94 million rupees.
The charge sheet states that Rs 678.77 million was transferred from Suryadarshan Cooperative to Galaxy Television, operated by Gorkha Media, where Lamichhane was a founding shareholder and managing director. Of that amount, it is alleged that Lamichhane transferred Rs 260 million.
"Rs 678,770,220 of funds embezzled from depositors at Suryadarshan Savings and Credit Cooperative and earned through the offense was deposited into Gorkha Media Network Pvt Ltd, where defendant Rabi Lamichhane was a shareholder and managing director," the charge sheet reads. "Of this, Rs 261,444,705 was transferred during the period the defendant was a shareholder."
"Evidence confirms that the offense of money laundering was committed by hiding the illegal source of assets obtained through embezzlement of various cooperatives, changing rights and ownership, disguising and changing the true nature and source of the assets obtained through the offense, and maintaining a distance between the illegal source and the resulting assets through transfers and usage via Gorkha Media Network's bank accounts," the charge sheet further says.
Gorkha Media Network’s total deposits were Rs 933.5 million, of which Rs 678.7 million allegedly came from Suryadarshan Cooperative. The charge sheet claims that Lamichhane personally signed off on Rs 260 million of that amount to be sent to other companies and individuals.
According to the charge sheet, analysis of checks paid out by Gorkha Media shows that Rs 594.94 million was paid via 1,237 checks. Among these, 814 checks totaling Rs 485.82 million were issued with Lamichhane’s sole signature. Six checks totaling Rs 6,019,000 were signed jointly by Lamichhane and GB Rai.
The prosecution claims that for the purpose of laundering, funds coming to Gorkha Media were transferred and "layered" through companies unrelated to media, such as Nature Herbs and Nature Nest.
Furthermore, they claim a loan of Rs 10 million taken by Lamichhane from Suryadarshan Cooperative in June 2020 for one year was also laundered. Evidence suggests that to repay this loan, Lamichhane, as a director, signed checks from Gorkha Media's IME account to send monthly payments of Rs 100,000 to Rs 200,000.
An amount of Rs 7.5 million transferred between the bank accounts of Lamichhane and GB Rai is also viewed as an attempt to launder money.
Rs 20 million was deposited into GB Rai's Standard Chartered account from a Mega Bank account in the name of Suryadarshan Cooperative. Of this amount, Rai sent Rs 7.5 million to Lamichhane's Global IME account on January 21, 2021. The next day, Lamichhane allegedly sent that amount to Gorkha Media’s Global IME account.
The charge sheet states that Lamichhane thus laundered a total of Rs 278.9 million, combining the Rs 7.5 million from Rai, the Rs 10 million personal loan from Suryadarshan, and the Rs 261.4 million brought into Gorkha Media. It mentions that these facts were uncovered by analyzing documents recovered by the police from the GB Group of Companies for investigation.
In his statement, Lamichhane maintained that while he was a shareholder, he was unaware of the funds coming into the company. Regarding the Rs 10 million in his name, he told the government attorney that he became officially aware of it only when testifying before the parliamentary committee.
"Since I was not involved in any way in taking funds from the cooperative, and did not even use the cooperative's money, it is not my responsibility to return the cooperative’s money. If I had taken a loan from the cooperative institution, I should have received letters or demands for payment of the loan and interest. I have no knowledge of any loan being taken illegally," he said in his statement to the police.
