Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) arrested Sah and Yadav outside the Constituent Assembly (CA) building at New Baneshwor late on Tuesday afternoon and informed CA Chairman Subash Nemwang about the arrests.[break]
“We are going to charge-sheet them on criminal counts, primarily as per the Passport Act 2024 BS and most probably also invoking the Muluki Aain for forgery of government documents and seals,” said CIB chief DIG Rajendra Singh Bhandari.
For those who misuse or tamper with passports, the Passport Act, under Schedule 1, specifies a one-year jail sentence or a fine of Rs 500 or both. In case of a parallel trial on a charge of forging a government document, the court could mete out another one-year sentence to the lawmakers.
The scam had surfaced after two persons-- Pritivi Chantyal and an unidentified woman-- carrying the lawmakers´ tampered red passports were turned back from Abu Dhabi while on the way to Australia. Etihad Airlines had handed them over to the immigration office at Tribhuvan International Airport.
Chantyal had recorded a statement with Abu Dhabi Immigration that he had paid Rs 16 million for the tampered passports. CIB holds that the amount would not have been spent just for two passports and it rather shows that a lot more red passports could have been misused.
Singh added that CIB has been scrutinizing a few other red passports, including those of Shiva Pujan Ray, Rambha Devi and Salma Khatun, on suspicion of misuse. Ray will likely be brought to book as Australia´s immigration records already show that somebody holding the lawmaker´s red passport seems not to have left that country, where he landed a few months ago.
The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has been probing the case simultaneously. Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and the Parliament Secretariat had looked into the case.
Sah, elected under the proportionate electoral system from the Nepali Janata Daal, and Yadav of Madhesi People´s Right Forum (MPRF) were known to have attempted in several ways to evade investigations while also bringing to bear intense political pressure in their favor, thereby delaying investigations.
Before succumbing to investigations, they had freely tampered with their red passports in a bid to hide a high-profile scam involving a potentially handsome deal with racketeers.
Sah was found to have tampered with her red passports in at least eight different ways, including removal and re-pasting of her UK visa and also removal of the departure sticker.Yadav had removed the sticker from his passport and replaced it with the Australian visa sticker.
CIB presented the press conference the findings of forensic tests on the passports as evidence for booking them. “We have arrested them based on evidence. Their motives behind the misuse--monetary or whatever--should be exposed during further investigations,” Singh added.
Suspicion on immigration officials
The TIA immigration office was found not to have recorded the deportation of the two persons from Abu Dhabi. “The case would have been resolved very early had immigration officials held them for interrogations upon their forced arrival,” Singh said.
“Because immigration records did not help us, we approached other sources,” he said.
MOFA had become aware of the case after Etihad Airlines sent details about the deportation.
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