Nepal’s crackdown on businessmen can’t have it both ways

Balendra Shah’s administration has every right to dismantle corruption and business-politician collusion. But it should ask whether the cost of its methods will be borne by an economy already desperate for investment.

In early May, days after Shekhar Golchha was arrested, the Supreme Court found his detention illegal, explicitly citing the bypassing of due process. But within hours of his release, a team from the Central Investigation Bureau rearrested him on a separate insurance-fraud allegation. A CIB official told reporters the new case was entirely unrelated to the one the court had just thrown out. Last month, Golchha was released on bail for Rs10 million.