Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: A forgery case has been filed at the Kathmandu District Court against 290 individuals, which includes four former ministers, six former secretaries, and one sitting secretary.
The District Attorney’s Office, Kathmandu, filed the case against former ministers Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar, Dambar Shrestha, Chandra Dev Joshi, and Sanjaya Sah; incumbent secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut; and former secretaries Dip Basnyat, Yubaraj Bhusal, Chhabi Raj Pant, Dinesh Hari Adhikari, Rabindra Man Joshi, and Narayan Malego, among others. The CIB has also obtained statements from former Prime Ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai, but advised against charge-sheeting them.
Only 17 of these individuals are currently in police custody. The District Attorney’s Office in Kathmandu has listed the remaining 273 as absconding.
Although the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of the Nepal Police, which investigated the case, had advised the attorney’s office to file charges of forgery and organized crime, the attorney’s office has officially charged them solely with the forgery case.
Earlier, in February 2020, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) brought corruption charges against 175 individuals; however, it spared several influential people from these charges.
