The Special Court on Sunday sentenced former lawmaker and promoter of Civil Savings and Credit Cooperative Limited Ichchha Raj Tamang to three years in jail and slapped a fine of Rs1.72 billion for money laundering.

A joint bench of Special Court chairperson Tek Narayan Kuwar and members—Tej Narayan Singh and Muraribabu Shrestha—had convicted him on January 21.

The court announced the punishment on Sunday as it delays the determination of penalty in cases where the convicted persons are subject to jail terms of over three years.

Besides Tamang, the court had also convicted his wife, Srijana Shakya, and Keshav Lal Shrestha, one of his relatives, for money laundering. On Sunday, the court also sentenced Shakya to one-and-a-half years in jail while fining her Rs1.03 billion. Similarly, Keshav Lal has been jailed for one year and six months and fined Rs256.58 million.

The court said they were punished as per section 30(1) of the Money Laundering Prevention Act. Under this provision, the jail term ranges from two years to 10 years and the fine can go up to double the offence.

After the court announced its sentences, the door has now opened for Tamang’s wife Shakya to be released from jail as she has already spent jail term as determined by the Special Court.

“Tamang and his wife are in prison,” said Special Court spokesperson Dhan Bahadur Karki. “If they have spent the jail term as determined by the court, they should no longer be imprisoned.”

Police had arrested Tamang in early October 2021 and his wife in July 2021.

On January 21, the court gave Tamang’s two daughters—Pratiskya Tamang and Pratistha Tamang—clean chits but it was silent on Mina Kumari Shrestha being made a defendant only for the confiscation of property.

As per its announcement on Sunday, the court also ordered the seizure of properties of all six defendants gained through laundered money and those whose source could not be established as per section 34 (1) and section 28 (2) of the Money Laundering Prevention Act-2008.

Given that they were also facing fraud cases at the District Court, Kathmandu, the Special Court said that if convicted, seized properties should be used for compensating the victims of fraud.

On September 1, 2022, the Department of Money Laundering Investigation had filed a case at the court against the six people for money laundering.

The department had sought Rs3.32 billion in claims from Tamang and Rs1.3 billion from his wife. As much as Rs266.14 million was sought from Keshav Lal, Rs64.74 million from Tamang's daughter Pratiskya, and Rs18.91 million from another daughter Pratistha.

They were charged with money laundering on the grounds that they made additional earnings by investing the illegally earned property in the real estate sector, including in Civil Homes, where he and his family members were involved.

Tamang and other defendants in the money laundering case are also facing fraud and organised crime cases after embezzling public deposits at Civil Cooperative. The case of money laundering was filed at the Special Court after seeing that embezzled amount was used to enrich themselves by investing in various projects run by Tamang’s family and associates.

In December 2021, District Attorney Office, Kathmandu had filed the case at Kathmandu District Court against Tamang along with 41 others associated with the cooperative, on charges of embezzling public money worth Rs5.67 billion.

As per the charge sheet, he has been accused of luring general public with interest rates up to 17 percent and offering gold coins to secure their deposits at the cooperative and using the deposits in the companies owned by his own group without collateral.