KATHMANDU: The Patan High Court has issued a temporary stay order directing authorities not to arrest journalist Dil Bhushan Pathak amid an ongoing electronic transaction (cybercrime) case.

The Nepal Police Cyber Bureau had obtained permission from the Kathmandu District Court to arrest and investigate him, but the High Court instructed that Pathak should not be immediately taken into custody pending further proceedings.

The High Court has summoned both parties to deliberate on whether an interim order should be issued.

Pathak had filed a petition at the Patan High Court seeking to halt the arrest warrant issued against him in connection with the cybercrime case.

The Kathmandu District Court had issued the warrant after Pathak, in a video, linked Jayavir Deuba, son of Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, to the controversial Hilton Hotel case.