A habeas corpus petition has been filed in the Supreme Court accusing the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) of keeping in illegal detention journalist Kanak Mani Dixit.

The petition was filed by Dixit’s wife Shanta Dixit on Wednesday. The petitioner has claimed that Dixit was detained by the CIAA without notifying him about the charges against him.

Dixit, co-publisher of Himalmedia, was detained by the CIAA on last Friday from Patan Dhoka on the charge of ‘amassing disproportionate wealth’ by abusing his power as the Chair of Sajha Yatayat, a public transportation company.

Beside the CIAA, the Special Court has also been made a defendant in the petition for allowing the anti-graft body to keep Dixit in custody for 10 days without justifying why he should be detained.

The Himalmedia chapter of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) has stated that all the charges against Dixit are false and his detention was an act of vengeance by the CIAA Chair Lok Man Singh Karki. Dixit had vocally criticised Dixit’s appointment as the CIAA Chair, arguing that the former Chief Secretary was found guilty of suppressing the pro-democracy movement of 2006 by an independent probe commission.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN) have condemned Dixit’s arrest and urged the Nepali authorities to immediately release him. In Nepal, the FNJ and the Press Union have criticised the CIAA for overstepping its jurisdiction by detaining Dixit.