A writ petition has been filed at the Supreme Court against the recommendation of Dillibazaar Prison Office to waive the remaining jail sentence of former lawmaker of the then CPN (Maoist Centre) Balkrishna Dhungel. He is doing time in the Dillibazaar Central Jail in a murder case.

In the writ, advocate Dinesh Tripathi said that the recommendation to waive the remaining jail sentence of Dhungel has attacked the aspiration of criminal judicial system.

The writ stated that it is a wrong practice to grant amnesty to a person who was imposed life sentence in a murder case on the basis of power and political nepotism.

It has been learnt that Dhungel has already spend more than eight years in the jail on the same charge.

A team of Nepal Police Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) on October 31, 2017 had arrested Dhungel from Satdobato in Lalitpur and presented him before Kathmandu District Court in Babarmahal. The court later sent him to Dillibazaar prison.

The Supreme Court (SC) had convicted Dhungel for the 1998 murder of Ujjan Kumar Shrestha of Okhaldhunga and ordered life term with confiscation of property. The Okhaldhunga District Court in 2004 had convicted Dhungel for the murder of Shrestha and sentenced him to life imprisonment, but in 2006, the Rajbiraj Appellate Court gave him a clean chit. The apex court in 2010 overturned Rajbiraj Appellate Court’s decision and upheld Okhaldhunga District Court’s verdict.

Tripathi had filed a writ against IGP Aryal on April 12 for neglecting the SC’s verdict to arrest murder convict Dhungel.

Responding to a contempt of court case filed by Tripathi, the very next day the apex court had asked the police chief to deploy all its resources, arrest Dhungel and present him before the court within a week.

The Supreme Court on April 13 had ordered IGP of Nepal Police to arrest Dhungel and put him behind bars within a week.

He was elected lawmaker in 2008 Constituent Assembly elections.

The Baburam Bhattarai government in November 2011 had recommended presidential clemency for Dhungel, but it was rejected by the court.

Despite the SC order, Dhungel had been walking free, largely due to the protection from his party.