KATHMANDU: Supreme Court has ordered the Attorney General’s Office to submit additional documents in a legal challenge to its decision to withdraw charges of money laundering and organized crime against Rabi Lamichhane, president of the Rastriya Swatantra Party.

A joint bench of Justices Manoj Kumar Sharma and Shrikant Paudel issued the order on Sunday, seeking original documents related to the amendment of the charge sheet that removed the allegations against Lamichhane and others.

The court’s directive followed arguments by government lawyers that new evidence had emerged, prompting an amendment of the charge sheet under Section 36 of Nepal’s Criminal Procedure Code. The bench asked the Attorney General’s Office to produce the additional original evidence cited as the basis for the amendment and to present it for consideration during a hearing on an interim order.

Earlier, a single bench led by Justice Abdul Aziz Musalman had directed the Attorney General’s Office to submit a written response to the petition.

The writ petition, filed Thursday by senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi along with law student Ayush Badal and Yuvraj Paudel, seeks to overturn the Attorney General’s decision, calling it “prima facie unlawful, mala fide, and arbitrary.”

Attorney General Sabita Bhandari had decided on December 30 to amend the charge sheets filed in district courts in Kaski, Kathmandu, Rupandehi, and Parsa, removing claims related to “organized crime” and “money laundering” against Lamichhane.

The petition names the Attorney General’s Office, various government prosecutor offices, and the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers as respondents.

The case adds to mounting scrutiny over prosecutorial discretion in high-profile political cases and is expected to have broader implications for how charge sheets may be amended after filing when authorities claim new evidence has surfaced.