The Supreme Court has refused to issue an interim order on a writ petition of Prithvi Bahadur Shah who had demanded the court to release his money brought from the United States.

A division bench of justices Bishwambhar Prasad Shrestha and Kumar Chudal on Monday decided not to issue an interim order to the Nepal Rastra Bank.

The apex court, however, has decided to send the writ petition for a final hearing.

“The court did not issue an interim order and has sent the petition for a final hearing,” said Bimal Poudel, spokesperson of the Supreme Court. “Now the case will go for a final hearing.”

However, the date for the final hearing has yet to be determined.

“Normally it can take a few months but the final hearing will take place on stipulated time if the justices have fixed a certain date,” Poudel told the Post.

On behalf of the World Export and Import Private Limited, Shah, a resident of Darna Rural Municipality-8 in Achham district, had filed the writ petition at the Supreme Court on July 27 last year demanding the court to issue an interim order so as to have the money released.

Shah had brought 400 million rupees from different companies in America but Nepal's central bank had blocked the sum citing some suspicious activities.

As per the record of the Supreme Court, Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma, acting on the petition, had issued a show cause notice to the central bank on July 30 last year and had also called both the plaintiff and defendants for discussions on whether to issue an interim order. But for the next five times although the petition was listed for hearing, the court did not hear it citing a heavy caseload.

Shah had knocked the door of the Supreme Court after the Department of Money Laundering Investigation initiated a probe into the money deposited at Shah’s bank account following a request by the Financial Information Unit of the central bank.

But the issue came to fore after Finance Minister Janardan Sharma directed officials to release the money claiming that Shah wanted to invest the money in Nepal.

As many as six writ petitions were registered at the Supreme Court demanding the court to stop the ongoing investigation into 15 bank accounts opened in the name of Shah, his kin, employees and different companies. But the Supreme Court has already refused requests for an interim order to the central bank to release the money.

But the court on Monday decided to send the sixth petition for a final hearing after refusing to issue an interim order demanded by Shah.

After the Supreme Court refused to issue an interim order to release his money Shah had written to Finance Minister Sharma. Convinced by his request, Sharma had directed the central bank to release the funds.

But after Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari refused to stop the ongoing investigation into the suspicious funds, the government had announced a probe panel against Adhikari himself that led to his automatic suspension. On Sunday, Adhikari moved the Supreme Court demanding that the government probe against him be stopped claiming that the allegations against him were baseless because the finance minister himself had been attending all the meetings of the central bank along with him.