Sudhir Basnet charged with Rs 4.45m fraud

KATHMANDU, JAN 07 -

Troubled real-estate player Sudhir Basnet has been charged with fraud of Rs 4.45 million.

The District Court Kathmandu on Sunday ordered that Basnet be remanded in seven-day judicial custody. According to the police, Basudev Prasad Ray has filed a complaint against Basnet, who is also the promoter of Agni Air.

A police source said Basnet, who was arrested on Friday, was given an arrest warrant on Sunday.

Basnet’s arrest has been linked with the auction of his airline company, as he was arrested a day after the company was put up for auction by a consortium of lenders. However, DSP Dhiraj Pratap Singh, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Range, said the police was informed that Basnet was planning to run away and that they arrested him.

Basnet has said that his arrest ‘is a conspiracy to take over Agni Air at a cheaper price’. However, the banks — Grand Bank, Sunrise Bank and International Leasing and Finance Company — have been saying that there is no link between the auction and Basnet’s arrest. The banks

have collectively lent Rs 650 million to Agni.

Basnet is grappling with multiple crises as a majority of his housing projects are still incomplete, blocking his cash flow. Although the airline

made a profit in the last fiscal year, it could not escape from the promoter’s liabilities in other sectors.

On Sunday, around 500 customers of Basnet’s housing projects and cooperative picketed the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range, demanding his release. They also wrote a joint appeal to the police on Sunday morning urging not to take Basnet to the court to extend his detention for preliminary investigations. “However, the police refused to entertain our plea,” they said.

They have also asked the government to intervene and halt the airline auction. “If the airline is auctioned, there is no chance that we get our money back,” Sunil Basnet, who paid Rs 4.2 million for an apartment at one of Basnet’s housing project.

“We have already given him more than five months to repay our money,” said an irate client, who did not want to be named. “He should be jailed and his property should be sold to repay customers money.”

Source: The Kathmandu Post