Arun Kumar Chaudhary, a member of the House of Representatives from Nagarik Unmukti Party, has been released from Kailali prison today after he was granted amnesty by the President’s Office on Democracy Day.
Chaudhary was among 395 convicts whose jail terms were pardoned by President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Friday on the government’s recommendation.
In 2013, lawmaker Chaudhary, along with Parshuram Chaudhary and Bir Bahadur Chaudhary, was convicted of arson by Kailali District Court and sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay a fine of Rs 875,000 after they were found guilty of setting a tractor on fire.
However, after the arrest of one of the convicts, Bir Bahadur, on Friday last week, it was found that the court’s verdict on the incident was not implemented. Lawmaker Chaudhary was arrested and presented to the District Court in Kailali on February 3.
The Nagarik Unmukti Party is among the seven parties that have extended support to the current government.
Meanwhile, President Bhandari has also made the decision to grant amnesty to all local-level candidates, who were fined by the Election Commission for failing to submit details of their election expenses within the stipulated deadline of 30 days has drawn condemnations from lawyers.
The EC had imposed fines on 123,624 candidates who had failed to submit details of election expenditure within the deadline of 30 days.
According to Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, the total fine amount would have been a total of almost 25 billion rupees.
