SC Upholds Decision to Cancel Lumbini Oversea’s Licence

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the two-year old decision of the government to cancel the licence of Lumbini Overseas Private Limited.

A division bench of Justices Ram Prasad Shrestha and Top Bahadur Magar decided to uphold the decision. The bench nullified the writ petition filed by its managing director Kul Bahadur Karki challenging the decision of the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management, which had cancelled the licence of the Lumbini Overseas and slapped Rs one lakh fine on it.

"The writ petitioner could not justify his good intention while coming to the apex court; thus an order cannot be issued as per demand," the bench added. The then Minister Raghuji Pant had decided to cancel the licence of the manpower company.

The bench also said that the manpower company had evaded tax while sending people to South Korea and was "involved with illegal activities." The bench observed that the manpower company had sent 5,583 trainee workers to South Korea, but paid tax for just 3,586 and evaded tax of 1727 workers.