Mahara home after four-months plus stay in judicial custody

– Kalika Khadka

Following the court’s acquittal on attempt to rape charge, former Speaker of House of Representatives Krishna Bahadur Mahara returned home today after more than four months of stay in judicial custody at Dillibazar prison.

Mahara returned home after the Kathmandu district court Judge Ambar Raj Poudel gave a clean chit to Mahara on charge of attempting to rape a woman staff working at the legislature-parliament.

"The statements recorded during the investigation of the incident and later in the court, and analysis of the testimony of the victims and the victim’s clear statement that the defendants had not visited her in her room on the day of the incident took place are the bases for the clean chit," court’s record keeper Ananda Prasad Shrestha said.

Likewise, the verdict further states that the claim for the allegations were insufficient as the finger prints, according to the report of the specialists, of Mahara did not match with finger prints at glass and eyeglass that were claimed to have used during the time of incident.

The final hearing on Mahara’s case started on Sunday but the court rescheduled the date for Monday for lack of time.

Though seven and a half years in prison was claimed against Mahara in the charge-sheet, the charge could not get an approval from the court. Earlier, the District Judge Sudarshan Pandey had issued a directive to send Mahara to judicial custody on November 3, 2019. Before that, Mahara spent a month in police custody.

Following the district court’s order to send him to the custody, Mahara had appealed at the Patan High Court seeking his release in general bail. However, the judges at the Patan High Court refused Mahara’s claim by upholding the Kathmandu District Court’s directive to send the former speaker to the judicial custody.