The Bhutanese Leading the way.
When the Home Minister Tshering, resigned from office, he said it was mainly due to a campaign by an anonymous Facebook page against him that threatened not only his image but of the government and country.
He said that while in office, his position constrained him from taking legal action, but that he is now able to pursue the matter.
The former Home Minister’s resignation letter to the Prime Minister dated 5th August says that he had submitted his resignation on 24th March 2026, but the Prime Minister had at the time reassured him that there was no compelling reason for him to step down.
He said he was resubmitting his resignation in light of the circumstances at present. The letter states, “Ministerial office carries a higher responsibility to preserve public confidence and protect the integrity of the government and the continuing controversy surrounding a personal matter concerning me risks distracting from the important work of the Royal Government and the Cabinet.
“In these circumstances, I believe that stepping aside is the right and responsible course of action. This difficult decision has been taken in the larger institutional and public interest,” said the letter.
Legal Actions by Wife and Former Minister
The former Home Minister’s wife, Yeshey Dema, told this paper that now that her husband is out of office, she plans to file a case against the complainant under the Marriage Act in relation to the alleged extramarital relationship between the complainant and her husband. She said she intends to seek compensation or Gao through the legal process.
Yeshey said she would rely, among other things, on the police investigation report and the Office of the Attorney General’s review, which she said did not substantiate the complainant’s allegation of rape and instead concluded that the relationship between the two was consensual.
Yeshey also said police have an audio recording of an intimate telephone conversation between her husband and the complainant. She said she cannot disclose the contents because of an undertaking given to police, but intends to ask that the recording be produced as evidence in the legal proceedings.
The former minister had filed a police complaint with the North Thimphu Police station over anonymous allegations against him on the issue on various Facebook forums on 2nd April 2026, and later he filed another follow-up complaint with the City Police Station on 21st May 2026 on the anonymous Facebook page Bhutan Women’s Justice Initiative.
The police, as part of its investigation, sought a court order to identify the creator or person behind the page. According to the RBP, the order was sent to Facebook through its online process more than a month ago, but no response had been received at the time of reporting.
Tshering said he would continue pursuing the complaint and provide additional material and evidence to try and track down the creator of the page.
The Complainant Declines to Comment
Meanwhile, the complainant had filed a police complaint for harassment against Tshering’s wife after she tried to contact the complainant via phone on seeing some critical remarks against her by the complainant on Tshering’s phone. The case is in court, and neither side wants to comment on it for now since it is sub-judice.
The Bhutanese contacted the complainant and informed her that Tshering had resigned and that he and his wife had indicated that they intended to pursue legal action.
The complainant said she did not wish to debate the matter through the media because legal proceedings were ongoing. She said that if Tshering or his wife had any complaint against her, she would respond through the appropriate legal process.
She said the background and updates regarding the previous two cases are publicly available on Change.org petition.
The Petition Page
The online petition page calls for ‘An Independent Review and Accountability in Sexual Assault Allegations in Bhutan.’
The page contains allegations concerning Tshering, including allegations of sexual assault, deception, intimidation and abuse of authority.
The petition also calls for investigation into alleged intimidation, retaliation, online harassment and possible interference with justice, as well as greater transparency regarding the handling and outcome of the cases.
Responding to Anonymous Online Pages and Posts
Yeshey Dema and Tshering have both come out against the Facebook page ‘Bhutan Women’s Justice Initiative’, anonymous posts online and also the online petition.
Tshering maintains that his relationship with the complainant was consensual. He has disputed the allegation that their first encounter in April 2025 constituted sexual assault.
The online posts have maintained a different account, alleging that the first encounter was not consensual. The circumstances surrounding that encounter are disputed and remain relevant to the legal proceedings.
The online accounts also state that the complainant did not immediately report the alleged assault because she was grieving the death of a loved one and was in a state of shock.
According to the police investigation police concluded that the two subsequently had an affair and continued their relationship for a period.
Tshering has acknowledged telling the complainant that he was experiencing marital difficulties. Yeshey Dema said her husband had been experiencing marital problems and that she had communicated with him about divorce before she became aware of the alleged affair.
Yeshey said she subsequently became suspicious of an affair and confronted both her husband and the complainant. She described a series of events in which she said she attempted to contact the complainant and later confronted her husband.
Yeshey said she started suspecting her husband of having an affair from June or July 2025 onwards when a friend of hers told her that her husband visits a particular house. She then looked at CCTV camera records near the house and saw her husband going in several times. She also saw calls coming in with the name of the complainant on her husband’s phone at odd hours
She also said she obtained a recording device and placed it in Tshering’s vehicle, where she said it captured part of an intimate telephone conversation after Tshering placed his phone on speaker while driving.
She tried to contact the complainant after this.
Yeshey said the complainant initially filed a harassment complaint against her on 27 September 2025, which was later withdrawn, and that police subsequently required her to give an undertaking not to publish the contents of the recording on social media.
Then finally on 29th October, 2025 the complainant reopened the harassment case against Yeshey and filed a sexual assault case against Tshering.
Yeshey has also denied other allegations circulating online concerning her husband, including allegations relating to land and loans.
Yeshey also denied claims of a land scam by her husband or that she was blackmailing him with it as claimed by the online posts. She said if there is any land scam, there are already relevant authorities like National Land Commission and Anti-Corruption Commission.
Yeshey also responded to online posts about her husband having loans, and here, she said they don’t have much loans, and the loan they do have is covered by their rental income with sufficient amount for both EMIs and family expenditure.
She maintains that the police investigation and OAG review did not establish sexual assault and instead found the relationship to have been consensual.
The online posts say the minister deceived the complainant assuring her right after the first incident that he would divorce his wife soon. The online posts say this is deception.
The minister admitted that he did tell the complainant he was having marital problems with his wife.
Yeshey said her husband did not say anything wrong as they had major marital issues, and she even has a Telegram message of hers from around that time asking for a divorce well before she was aware of the affair.
Yeshey asked why the complainant did not file the rape case complaint on 27 September 2025 while filing the harassment case, and why did she withdraw her harassment case at all.
Yeshey said that her husband being the Home Minister was more a casualty than any benefit as the police were forced to take a case despite no evidence more than 18 months after the alleged assault. She said the police were afraid of being accused of backing the minister, and even when their investigation did not find anything, they did not dismiss the case like it should have been but sent it to the OAG.
Complainant sues BBS and the implications on press freedom
In a separate development, the complainant has filed a defamation case against Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) in the Thimphu District Court over a BBS report concerning the OAG’s decision in the matter.
The BBS news report has not interviewed either the minister or the complainant, and reported only the OAG decision and their legal logic behind it.
The Thimphu District Court accepting the case and running a trail on it has led to worries among the journalism community on the chilling impact it could have on press freedom.
They fear this could set the precedent, whereby journalists reporting on decisions or findings of public and autonomous institutions could be sued, and expose media organizations to litigation and the process of litigation itself would be the punishment.
The paper asked the Judicial Spokesperson of the Supreme Court about the legal basis for the District Court registering the case and the potential implications for media freedom.
The Spokesperson said, “Any court has the right to register a case if there it involves a concrete case or controversy as per section 31 of the CCPC. The court needs to determine if the report is false in nature since her petition was found to have a concrete case. The case is sub judice so we can’t comment much.”
