GovernanceDeveloping
Chief Justice Sharma denies any contact with alleged fixer Inam Sapkota
Sharma says he was not yet Chief Justice in the months a disputed report cited, and OnlineKhabar reports police formed a panel to probe Sapkota.
Developing story. This brief carries only what was confirmed when it ran, at 19:21 NPT.
Chief Justice Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma on Thursday, October 29 denied any contact with Inam Sapkota, a man police arrested on an accusation of acting as a middleman, DC Nepal and OnlineKhabar reported. Police have formed a special committee to probe Sapkota's alleged links to high-profile figures, OnlineKhabar reported, citing an unnamed official.
The committee is led by Superintendent of Police Narahari Regmi of the Kathmandu Valley Police Office, working with the Kathmandu District Police Range, where Sapkota is held, OnlineKhabar reported. Police arrested Sapkota at Tribhuvan International Airport as he prepared to fly to Delhi, initially on an indecent behaviour charge, and are now probing him for money laundering, the outlet said. They arrested him after a tip about alleged links with former Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana and claims he arranged deals in the judiciary, OnlineKhabar reported. A forensic check of his phone has reportedly revealed further alleged links to judges, senior Nepal Police and Armed Police Force officers, businesspeople, government employees and lawmakers, the outlet said.
Sharma, in a Thursday statement, called reports linking him to Sapkota "completely false, baseless and fabricated," according to DC Nepal's report of the statement. "I have no direct or indirect acquaintance or contact with those individuals. I have never met them anywhere," he said, OnlineKhabar reported. DC Nepal reported that the disputed story, by outlet Diyo Post, cited phone data showing about 174,000 rupees, roughly 1,300 dollars, listed with Sharma's name, the name of a lawmaker from the Rastriya Swatantra Party, which has members in Nepal's parliament, and a third person's name. Sharma said he was not yet Chief Justice in the months cited.
What is not confirmed yet
- No other judge has answered publicly, according to the outlets the desk has read.
- No police statement or second outlet has yet confirmed the special committee, which OnlineKhabar reported citing an unnamed official.
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Sources
- OnlineKhabar English · Police special committee, Sapkota's arrest and alleged links to high-profile figures
- OnlineKhabar English · Chief Justice Sharma's denial and direct quote
- DC Nepal · Full text of Sharma's statement and detail of the disputed Diyo Post report
Editorial review record
Validation
1 red team round, 1 revision. Decision: approved.
- accuracy88
- relevance84
- defensibility88
- reach56
Judge 1: The core event, the Chief Justice's denial, rests on DC Nepal, OnlineKhabar and his own statement. But the brief leads with an undated, single sourced police panel and calls Sapkota a fixer in declarative voice on the card and headline. It also repeats Bar Association and Kathmandu Post claims from pages nobody fetched. One pass that re-leads on the denial, signals status and cuts the unread claims makes it publishable. The caption stays a bare hook by design.
Judge 2: All twelve edits from judge 1 appear in version 3, even though the log lists them as still missed. Each sentence checks against the three fetched pages, and the revision added no new unsourced claim, flat allegation or wrong date. The brief stands on a denial that two newsrooms carried, and it names what is not confirmed. Small leftovers are acceptable for a breaking brief: the middleman description traces only to DC Nepal, and 'him' in the caption hook could be read two ways. Virality sits a little under target, but by design the format gives up length for accuracy.
The complete record, including the advocate, skeptic, red team and defence arguments, is kept by the newsroom.
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