Indian casino King Rakesh Wadhwa's business interests in Nepal has suffered a fresh setback with the Supreme Court rejecting his plea to stay a government order which scrapped his licence to run casinos in the country. 

The apex court had on Monday rejected Wadhwa's demand to issue a stay order against the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MOTCA), which had scrapped the license to Nepal Recreation Centre (NRC) to operate casinos for his alleged failure to pay taxes amounting to more than Rs 21 crore. 

Wadhwa was the Managing Director of NRC which operated Casino Nepal in the premises of Hotel Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Casino Anna in the Hotel Annapurna, Casino Tara in Hotel Hyatt and Casino Everest in the Everest Hotel. NRC, which operated four casinos in Kathmandu, owes more than NRs 34 crore (Rs 21 crore) to the government in the form of royalties. 

However, the court decision would not annul the licenses issued to the respective hotels to operate casinos, Legal officer of Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Ranjan Aryal, said. Now it is upto the hotels to decide how they would like to operate the casinos, he added. 

It is learnt that after the ministry's move to annul NRC's authority to operate casinos, the hotels have appointed new managements to operate the business. 

The ministry had issued a seven days notice to clear all dues to NRC on June 18 and warned that the NRC's authority to run casinos will be annulled failing to pay the dues. 

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