The Rupandehi District Court has charged gaming operator Tiger One and Silver Heritage Investment with a fine of Rs 3,000 for contempt of court. District Judge Lila Raj Adhikari ruled against the operator of the Tiger Palace Resort, a five-star integrated casino resort in Bhairahawa, on Monday.
“The District Court deems the company committed ‘willful and intentional disobedience’ of the court’s orders in connection with the encroachment of public land,” advocate for the petitioner Lekhnath Pokhrel told Kathmandupost.com.
The move came after a local waiter group filed the contempt petition against Tiger One and Silver Heritage Investment accusing the resort of transgressing the court orders and preventing it from it selling shares or building anything on the land it claims is public property.
The full text of the order is yet to be released but according to Pokhrel, the court has also issued orders to nullify all sales and purchase agreements of the resort with immediate effect.
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Tiger One is the locally registered subsidiary of the Australian-listed Silver Heritage Group. The group started in Nepal in 2015 marking the opening of The Millionaire’s Club & Casino at the Shangri-La Hotel in Kathmandu. In 2017, it inaugurated the 100-room Tiger Palace Resort in Bhairahawa, which is the first integrated five-star casino resort in South Asia.
As per reports, the Silver Heritage Group was placed into voluntary administration last May by its main lender, OCP Asia in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shutting down of its two Nepal casinos–Tiger Palace Resort and The Millionaire’s Club in Kathmandu–finished any prospects the company had of generating liquidity.
On July 5, 2019, the court had passed an interim order to Tiger One and Silver Heritage Investment of Tilottama Municipality-7 barring it to sell shares or build anything on the plot where the five-star Tiger Palace Resort stands, pending a full verdict on a writ petition charging encroachment on public land. Pokhrel informed Kathmandu pos that the company failed to maintain the status quo in the case.
Tiger Palace is spread over 17 bighas and features two villas, a gym, spa, swimming pools, restaurants, and meeting and banquet facilities suitable for weddings with a resort that has a 2,471 square-meter casino floor.
Constructed at a cost of Rs 6 billion, the Tiger Palace Resort has been valued at Rs 3.97 billion, a source told kathmandu.com. The Silver Heritage Group has put its property on the market multiple times. In August 2019, when a non-resident Nepali Indra Bahadur Thapa was offering to buy the Tiger Palace Resort in Bhairahawa at an enterprise value of $33.9 million, the deal couldn’t through as Thapa failed to arrange the funds.