SC Orders Govt to Release 78 Students

Kathmandu Feb 13- The Supreme Court (SC) ordered the government to release all the seventy eight student leaders arrested from anti-poll demonstrations. The SC, responding to the habeas corpus plea filed at the initiatives of the Nepal Bar Association, ruled that the detention of the students was illegal.

Two separate benches of justices Damodar Prasad Sharma and Rajendra Prasad Koirala, and Sharada Prasad Shrestha and Arjun Prasad Singh took the decision to this effect. Justices Sharma and Koirala directed the concerned authority to set free a group of activists including the student leader Khim Lal Bhattarai whereas the joint bench of Shrestha and Singh passed the final verdict on the case of leaders like Yagya Raj Pant and Ram Kumari Jhankri, among others.

Even though the SC had ordered the government on February 7 to produce all seventy eight detainees, only fifteen detained student leaders were presented before the court. Those who were produced by the government had already been released.