The Kathmandu District Attorney’s Office has filed a cybercrime case against journalist Dil Bhusan Pathak at the Kathmandu District Court on Monday, accusing him of spreading hate and hostility through content published on his YouTube channel.
The Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police registered the case at the Attorney’s Office, alleging that one of Pathak’s recent video contents on Youtube violated provisions of the Electronic Transactions Act by disseminating material intended to provoke hatred.
Dipak Kumar Shrestha, information officer at the Kathmandu District Court, confirmed that the case has been registered at the court.
The Cyber Bureau filed the case on Monday, 11 days after the Patan High Court issued an interim order against the arrest of journalist Pathak. Pathak had filed a petition at the Patan High Court after Nepal Police’s Cyber Bureau secured an arrest warrant from the Kathmandu District Court.
When asked why the case was filed despite the high court’s interim order prohibiting authorities from arresting Pathak without legal grounds, Shrestha clarified that the Kathmandu District Government Attorney’s Office received an investigation report submitted by the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police, which made grounds for the case.
“An arrest warrant will be reissued with two notices with time limits of seven and 35 days,” Shrestha said. “If Pathak fails to appear before the court to present his defense, the case will proceed ex parte, in his absence.”
Cyber Bureau spokesperson and Senior Superintendent of Police Deepak Raj Awasthi confirmed that the bureau submitted the report on June 27.
“Our responsibility was to carry out an investigation, which we completed and submitted the report,” said Awasthi.
He added, “It is not our role to determine guilt or innocence; the conclusions of our report may be upheld or rejected during court proceedings. We simply fulfilled our responsibility to investigate and submit the findings.”
The high court had ruled that the available evidence did not justify immediate detention and emphasised the need to uphold due legal process.
The case stems from a video uploaded on Pathak’s Youtube channel Tough Talk, in which he raised questions regarding alleged financial activities linked to Jaiveer Singh Deuba, the son of former Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba.
Pathak’s legal team had challenged the arrest warrant, arguing it lacked sufficient legal grounds and infringed upon journalistic freedom. Subsequently, the court had instructed Nepal Police to refrain from arresting him until the case concluded.
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