High Court upholds conviction of three former Constituent Assembly members in passport misuse case

KATHMANDU: The Patan High Court has upheld the Kathmandu District Court’s conviction of three former Constituent Assembly members in a case involving misuse of diplomatic passports and document forgery.

A joint bench of Justices Khadka Bahadur KC and Gopal Prasad Banstola on July 7 upheld the convictions of former Constituent Assembly members Gayatri Sah, Bishwanath Prasad Yadav, and Shivpujan Rai Yadav.

According to Patan High Court Information Officer Govinda Prasad Koirala, the court upheld the district court’s sentence of five months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 500 each. The Kathmandu District Court had delivered the original verdict on June 4, 2014.

Police had accused the three former lawmakers, elected to the first Constituent Assembly in 2008, of selling the diplomatic passports issued to them in their official capacity to middlemen for financial gain.

The High Court also upheld the conviction of Dil Bahadur Gharti, Gopal Baniya, Manoj Kumar Karki, Devendra Poudel, and Santosh Raj Upreti for document forgery, affirming the district court’s sentence of one year in prison and a fine of Rs 554,000 each.

In a related case, the High Court also upheld the Kathmandu District Court’s verdict sentencing Prithvi Chhantyal of Myagdi to one year in prison and a fine of Rs 500 for attempting to travel to Australia using a forged passport.