High Court halts Dharan Mayor Sampang’s soap factory construction plan

DHARAN, Dec 22: The court has halted Dharan Sub-metropolis Mayor Harka Sampang’s plan to build a soap factory in Dharan, saying the sub-metropolis had proceeded with the plan to build the factory without completing the due process.

On Wednesday, after preliminary hearings on a writ petition filed by the District Forest Office, Sunsari, against the soap factory construction works, the Biratnagar High Court issued an interim order in favor of the forest office. Division Forest Officer Bhim Bahadur Kalikote on December 15 filed the petition against Mayor Sampang and the Sub-metropolitan City office, demanding that the court issue a mandamus to halt the soap factory construction works. After preliminary hearings on the petition, a divisional bench of judges Ram Bahadur Thapa and Kiran Kumari Gupta on Wednesday issued an interim order, halting the soap factory construction works.

Following the court’s order, the soap factory construction work that was underway in Namuna Tole of ward No 20 of the sub-metropolis has come to a halt. Mayor Sampang had laid the foundation stone of the factory with the plan to produce Maya Dharane brand of soap. On Thursday morning, following the court's order, Mayor Sampang wrote on his Facebook wall that “the forest department and the political parties were trying to obstruct soap production and employment generation in Dharan.” Giving a brief response to Republica over the court order, he said, “"An interim order has been issued to halt the soap factory construction work..We will move according to the order."

Mayor Sampang faced a legal hurdle after it was revealed that the land he had chosen for building the soap factory was a forest area. To remove this hurdle, the executive meeting of the Dharan Sub-metropolis, in the first week of September, decided to gear up the process to develop the Dharan-20 Devigaun area into an industrial village. Jalakanya Community Forest had devised a plan to build a children's park on the land chosen by Mayor Sampang to build the soap factory.

After Mayor Sampang floated the idea of establishing a soap factory on that land, the local residents, forest user groups and the forest office requested him to complete the process of acquiring the land rights. After Mayor Sampang moved ahead with his plan saying that the land did not belong to the forest office, the latter knocked on the High Court’s doors and sent a letter to the Sub-Metropolitan city, asking it to complete the legal process.