Kathmandu, Oct 18: The Supreme Court ordered the release of a man who had remained in prison for more than four months beyond his sentence during the Dashain holiday, after finding his continued detention unlawful.
A single bench of Justice Tek Prasad Dhungana issued the order on October 16 in response to a habeas corpus petition filed by Diwas Ratna on behalf of his father, Dik Bahadur Damai.
Damai had been jailed over a loan recovery dispute with Nawadhawalagiri Savings and Credit Cooperative Ltd. His son argued that his father had completed his sentence but remained in Dillibazar Prison.
The Supreme Court found that his sentence had ended on May 20, 2026, and that no reasonable grounds existed to extend his detention from May 21 onward.
Prison authorities had claimed that Damai needed to remain in custody in connection with a separate cheque dishonour case. But they failed to submit the relevant judgment or supporting documents. The Kathmandu District Court said records had been destroyed in a fire on September 9.
Damai had earlier filed a habeas corpus petition at the High Court, but the case did not proceed as scheduled, according to his lawyer Sunil Kumar Patel.
In another case, the Supreme Court ordered the Kathmandu District Court, Kathmandu District Police Range and the Crime Investigation Office in Teku to submit explanations within three days over the alleged unlawful arrest of Titu Thakur of Siraha. She was accused in an educational consultancy fraud case and claimed she had been arrested before the deadline to appeal had expired.
The court also ordered the Central Investigation Bureau to produce four detainees, Ram Pukar Tiwari, Rabindra KC, Pravin Tiwari and Kailash Khadka, before the bench within 24 hours, along with the original investigation files.
Two other habeas corpus petitions, involving Subas Sunar and Bikash Kumar Tiwari, were dismissed on October 16.
Eight habeas corpus petitions were filed at the Supreme Court that day. According to the court administration, 13 such petitions had been registered by October 16 since the Dashain holiday began.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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