Chief Administrator of the court, Kaushaleshwor Gyawali, informed that Prem Prasad Dahal and Siva Bhakta Adhikari have been sentenced to four years and six months in prison along with fines of Rs 10.875 million each.[break]
Similarly, land revenue office staffers Shyam Pokharel, Ishawari Aryal, Chandra Prakash Shrestha and Ram Krishna Shrestha, who were involved in tampering with the original land records to help in the fraud, have been fined Rs 10.875 million each and slapped six years´ imprisonment.
Ram Krishna Shrestha and Aryal are non-gazzated first class officers while Chandra Prakash Shrestha and Pokharel were working as non-gazzated second class officers, at the land revenue office in Makawanpur. The racketeers had sold the land to New Asia Pacific Traders with the forged documents last year.
Five others--Bishnu Rai, Prasanta Jung Thakuri, Chudamani Dhungel, Manahari Gautam, Pusk Sunar-- have been fined the same amount each and sentenced to three years in prison. Likewise, Jit Bahadur Tamang, who worked as broker in the deal, has been sentenced to two years in prison, with the same amount of fine.
Similarly, proprietor of New Asia Pacific Traders, Prashanta Agrawal, has been fined Rs 7.875 million with two years in prison.
Agrawal also has to return the land to the original owners.
Shiva Shrestha, who stood as Agrawal´s guarantor, has been fined Rs 7.875 million with two years in prison.
Furthermore, Madan Kumar Sah of Loharpatti-2, Mahottari, who had bought a piece of the same land, has been fined Rs 3 million with two years in prison. Bharat Ballav Das, manager of Prabhu Finance Janakpur branch, has been fined Rs 3 million with two years in prison for providing the bank guarantee in the fraudulent land deal.
The court has given clean chits to 15 others in the case.
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