Bids to influence Lauda investigating authority suspected!

May 2, 2001
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Kathmandu: Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is being pushed to the wall.

Apart from the opposition’s continued onslaught against him initiated some three months back aiming at unseating

the Prime Minister from his chair, the fresh “advice” forwarded by the Supreme Court to the constitutional monarch saying that the citizenship bill sent for the Royal approval was against the constitution itself must have come as a blow for the regime in general and Koirala in particular.

However, a panic-stricken Prime Minister did tell his colleagues that the day the SC gave its verdict against the government was the saddest day in his nine years plus rule or misrule.

The practice has been that as and when the court forwards ruling of this sort, a government, which possesses “morality”, resigns and apologizes to the nation. This is, however, not forthcoming.

Yet another severe blow was offered to Prime Minister Koirala when the Commission for the Abuse of authority sacked RNAC Chairman Hari Bhakta Shrestha and member of the board, Mr. Tirtha Lal Shrestha and sent both to the police custody only last week wherein they are currently languishing.

The two “most unfortunate” Shrestha’s apparently with the hope that a second petition from them addressed to the CIAA would please the investigating authorities and that they would be left unscathed boomeranged.

The Shrestha brothers in effect had mentioned in the petition that whatever they did for the RNAC regarding the Lauda procurement procedure then were all the directives coming as it did from the Koirala Cabinet and that they had no hands or whatsoever in the faulty procurement of the said aircraft.

The CIAA, however, preferred to send them to the bars instead of listening to their new revelations.

Be that as it may, what is clear from the arrest of these two unfortunate Shrestha’s and their subsequent admissions is that these souls abided by the approval of the cabinet led by Girija. Also the arrest of these personalities proves that some way or the other these two souls too were involved in the Lauda procurement scam. The chunk of the commission thus received, if any, by the two might albeit have differed according to the status.

Thirdly, the summary confiscation of the Passport of the then culture and tourism minister Tarini Datt Chataut by the CIAA also tells the sorry tale of the Lauda affair and the ministerial involvement in the whole scam. The corollary of which could be drawn that unless the cabinet approved the procurement of the Lauda air, the minister could not have dared to do so. This again means that since the cabinet approved the procurement in haste the total responsibility has got to be shouldered by the cabinet chief that is G.P.Koirala.

And this is what the opposition and its allies in the streets were saying.

Media reports have it that bids were on from certain quarters to influence the investigating authority. The authority is being pressed hard to manage a safe landing for Koirala from the Lauda mess. This notwithstanding, rumors abound that says that if the CIAA exhibits leniency towards Koirala and frees Koirala from the allegation then the civil society might request for an impeachment against the chief of the investigating body that is S.N.Upadhyaya.

Critics even mutter in private that the two Shrestha’s and the former minister, Chataut, were being forced to become the “martyrs” for saving Girija Koirala.

However, the fact is that the two Shrestha’s, who have yet to come out of the bars for failing to deposit the bail amount of five crores, might one fine morning “leak” the real “secrets” to the CIAA and let the real drama begin.

So could be the case with minister Chataut. If he too is forced to the wall might let the cat out of the bag.

In the meantime, the CIAA is learnt to be finalizing the Lauda affair and is planning to file cases in the appropriate court against the declared culprits.

The general opinion has been that if the CIAA resorts to “third degree treatment” to those currently under the bars and whose passport has been impounded might divulge the “unbelievables” which is what the nation is waiting for.

However, the lay men are not sure whether the authority looking after the Lauda procurement affair are allowed to apply this sort of harsh treatment to the Lauda inmates.