Police on Saturday morning took Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) President Rabi Lamichhane to Bhairahawa on a flight to present him to the court.

Police had arrested Lamichhane, who is former managing director of Gorkha Media Network, on Friday night after the Butwal Bench of Tulsipur High Court ordered his detention in a cooperative fraud case.

Former home minister Lamichhane, who was arrested from his Budhanilkantha, Kathmandu residence on Friday night will be presented in the court only on Monday.

On Saturday and Sunday, Lamichhane will be kept in custody at the District Police Office Rupandehi, informed Superintendent of Police (SP) Ranjit Singh Rathore.

“He needs to be presented in court first, and then he will be sent to prison for judicial custody,” he said, “Saturday and Sunday are public holidays, so he will remain in police custody for two days.”

Police arrested Lamichhane after the high court bench overturned a decision by the Rupandehi District Court, which had released Lamichhane on Rs10 million bail in January last week in a Butwal-based Supreme Cooperative fraud case. The district court however had sent former deputy inspector general (DIG) of Nepal Police Chhabilal Joshi, a director at the Gorkha Media Network, to judicial custody in the same case.

The high court ruling upheld the district court’s previous decision to send Joshi to custody for further investigation in the case.

Om Gurung, the president of the Supreme Cooperative, who was arrested for embezzling cooperative funds, is currently being held in Block No. 1 of Bhairahawa District Jail.

Former DIG Joshi is kept in Block No. 2. According to sources, preparations are being made to keep Lamichhane and Joshi in the same block starting Monday.

A team under the command of senior superintendent of police Hobindra Bogati from the Central Investigation Bureau reached Lamichhane’s residence shortly after the court order on Friday.

The fraud case involves accusations of embezzlement by both Lamichhane and Joshi, with claims that Rs20 million were transferred to Lamichhane’s personal account and Rs25 million to Joshi’s.

The new development comes just five days after Lamichhane resumed his role as party president. The RSP had appointed party vice-president DP Aryal as its acting chief in December 2024 after Lamichhane faced cases of money laundering.

Lamichhane, who is still suspended as lawmaker, had requested Speaker Devraj Ghimire to lift his suspension a few days ago. The Speaker, however, responded that such reinstatement was not possible.

He is accused of embezzling tens of millions rupees from several cooperatives from Kathmandu, Pokhara, Rupandehi, Chitwan and Parsa districts when he was the managing director at the Gorkha Media Network. He quit the media to join politics in June 2023.