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Govt to forward Property Details of Individuals to Australia

Polymer Note Scandal

  2 min 21 sec to read

June 27:  The government is preparing to send the property details of individuals and organisations who are under investigation regarding the polymer note scandal to the Australian government.

The property details of nine individuals and organisations including former governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Dr Tilak Rawal along with Himalaya Bahadur Pandey, Prithvi Bahadur Pande, Rama Rajya Laxmi Pande, Keshav Khatri, Upendra Keshari Paudel and institutions including Mayflower Private Limited, Global Group Private Limited and Super Tristar Investment will be sent to Australia. The Supreme Court in August 2016 issued an order to forward the property details of the alleged individuals to the Australian government.

After the Supreme Court’s order, the Ministry of Law and Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) have been working in this regard.

According to the government, the individuals and organizations had a main role in the issuance of the 10-rupee polymer note in Nepal.

Dilli Raj Ghimire, joint secretary and spokesperson of the Ministry of Law, said that the ministry has been preparing to send the details as per the request of the Australian government.

"Every concerned authorities are working from their side and the process of collecting the property details has almost reached the last stage," he said.

When Dr Rawal was the governor of NRB, the contract to print the 10-rupee polymer note was given to a company named Note Printing Australia Limited. It was said that the printed notes were of low standard. The Australian government initiated an investigation on the concerned authorities there to see if there has been any corruption in the process.

To help in the investigation process, the Australian government had requested the Government of Nepal through diplomatic channel to send property details of those individuals and organisations in 2013.

Majority of the accused had filed writ petitions against the process but the Supreme Court quashed the writs.

However, after the Supreme Court gave an interim order to send the property details as per the request of the Australian government, the officials of the Ministry of Law and NRB moved forward with the process.

Backing the cases of the petitioners, the lawyers argued that the privacy of Nepal will be infringed upon if the property details are sent to other countries. They said such decision will also affect the general public’s view towards the reliability of banks.

 According to Clause 5 of the Mutual Legal Assistance Act- 2014, Nepal cannot collect and provide documents or proofs, examine any places or things and send the information, or collect and send the archive of banks, BFIs or any business or provide the information about criminal cases to foreign countries even when they request for it. 

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