The Kathmandu District Court has issued an arrest warrant for the arrest of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President and former Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane and his business partner Chhabilal Banjade.
The District Police Range, Kathmandu had sought permission to arrest them for investigation into the Swarnalakshmi Cooperative fraud case in Kathmandu. A bench of district judge Shishir Raj Dhakal on Sunday, allowed the police to keep Lamichhane and Banjade in custody and carry out investigation into the case.
Swarnalakshmi is also a cooperative of the GB Rai group. In the fraud case of Pokhara-based Suryadarshan Cooperative run by the same group, Rabi was arrested from Kathmandu on October 18 and taken to Pokhara. Prior to that, Banjade had already been arrested. Kaski police are preparing to file a case against them in the district court.
Meanwhile, the police have arrested two individuals – Kamal Lama of Kathmandu Metropolitan City-6, and Sunita Newa of Kathmandu Metropolitan City-31 in connection with the fraud case of Swarnalakshmi Cooperative.
The court had already issued an arrest warrant against 22 individuals accused in the fraud case of Swarnalakshmi Cooperative.
A total of 645 individuals have lodged formal complaints against Swarnalakshmi Cooperative with the Kathmandu District Police in connection with a fraud case.
They claim that 1.11 billion rupees of deposits were misappropriated from Swarnalakshmi. Police investigation has shown that 27,000 depositors had deposited over 2.65 billion rupees in that cooperative.
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