Govt will investigate Giri Bandhu Tea Estate case: PM Dahal

Published On: August 17, 2023 08:15 AM NPT By: Arun Bam

Land Act amended to sell 280 bighas

KATHMANDU, Aug 17: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said that the government will investigate the land case of Giri Bandhu Tea Estate in Jhapa. Speaking to the editors of various media houses on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dahal said he will investigate the land exchange in Giri Bandhu Tea Estate like the fake Bhutanese refugee scam and the Lalita Niwas land-grab case.

“Giri Bandhu Tea Estate case will also be investigated,” Prime Minister Dahal said, “Issues of past corruption will also be exposed.” CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli is one of the accused who allegedly changed the state policy to transfer and sell the land of Giri Bandhu Tea Estate to earn billions of rupees.

What is the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate scam?

The then King Mahendra had implemented land reforms by issuing the Land Act, 2021 in 2021 BS. According to the land reform regulations, any individual could own 28 bighas of land in the Terai district. If the land is more than that, it would be nationalized. The landlords close to the royal palace had already received information about the land reform and sealing before it was implemented. In order to avoid this, the palace also leaked the information that land related to agriculture and industry would not be nationalized.

Section 12 of the Land Act, 2021 mentions that the sealing of land does not include the land occupied by industries, agricultural industries, cooperative farming organizations and educational or health institutions.

Budhkaran Rajbansi, a landlord of Jhapa, who is considered to be close to the palace, had already received information that the land could be prevented from being nationalized if he created a tea plantation estate.

He established the Budhkaran Tea Estate there to avoid the sealing of land. The same information was also received by three other landlords of Jhapa, the Giri brothers (Prem Kumar Giri, Krishna Kumar Giri and Trilochan Giri). The Giri brothers had about 500 bighas of land in Birtamod, Jhapa. To protect the land, the Giri brothers went to register the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate in 2020 BS, before the implementation of the land reforms act. The land reform regulations implemented later could not seal the land as it was under a tea estate.

On December 25, 1964, a notice was published in the Nepal Gazette that the land used by Giri Bandhu Tea Estate will not be sealed. It is mentioned in the Nepal Gazette that the restrictions will be relaxed only as long as the tea industry exists. It is written in the gazette, “Exercising the right given by Section 12 (E) of the Land Act 2021, about 343 bighas and 19 Kattha 12 dhur have not been sealed and arrangement has been made for running tea estate in a total of 500 bighas of land only for that specific purpose.” It was also mentioned in the Act that the land that was exempted from being sealed could not be bought, sold or leased.

Thus, the Giri Bandhu Tea Estate, which was created to avoid land sealing during the Panchayat era, continued to operate even after the establishment of the multi-party system. Amendments to the Act after the multi-party system also maintained the limited exemptions granted to the agricultural industry, which have remained in place even by the time of the eighth amendment to the 'Land Related Act 2076'.

In the last few years, the land mafia have been planning to sell this land by plotting the tea estate. Contrary to the initial arrangement in the Land Related Act, 2021, the plan to exchange a piece of land in an expensive location with the one at a cheaper location has been already exposed. Out of the total area of 343 bighas, 19 kathas and 12 dhurs of the tea estate, 51 bighas of land were sold through illegal exchange in 2061. Preparations are underway to sell the rest of the land.

Giri Bandhu Tea Estate currently has 280 bighas of land and the rest is being used by the workers.

According to experts, the current price of the land connected with the Birtamod marketplace in Jhapa ranges from Rs 200,000 to Rs 3 million per square meter. Therefore, there is a plan to exchange the highly-priced land of the tea estate with the scrap-value land of Kachanakbal Rural Municipality and Jhapa Rural Municipality on the pretext of transferring the tea estate so that the valuable land of Birtamod can be sold in the form of "real estate". The name of real estate businessman Deepak Malhotra is linked in this case. Sources say that he has already spent billions of rupees for this.

Suspicion of corruption

The Land Related Act, 2021, had a provision that the land exempted from being sealed could be used only for the specific purpose. The same law also mentions that the land could not be bought, sold or exchanged. However, in the year 2076 BS, the then KP Sharma Oli-led government made the Eighth Amendment to the Land Management Act and included a provision that the land could be sold and distributed through exchange. In section 12 (a) of the Act, “If an industry, establishment, company or organization is dissolved or goes into liquidation for any reason, the establishment, company or organization under this Act, could exchange this land for the purpose of distributing the liability of such industry with the approval of the Government of Nepal.”

It is alleged that the then Oli-led government amended the Act to help sell land at a high price by transferring the land including that of Giri Bandhu Tea Estate.

Indra Bahadur Angwo, the former Finance Minister of Koshi Province, has been opposing this attempt. He has been accusing the then Prime Minister Oli of colluding with the then Minister of Land Management Padma Aryal, the then Secretary of Land Management Tek Narayan Pandey who is in jail in the case of fake Bhutanese refugee scam.