The decision of the Supreme Court to revoke the post of MP of National Swatantra Party Chairman Ravi Lamichhane has opened the way for an investigation into the allegations that he submitted false information and purchased a Nepali passport.
After Lamichhane became Home Minister, the police investigation was stopped.
The Supreme Court’s summary judgment on his citizenship dispute on Friday did not mention the passport issue. According to legal experts, the main issue of the writ petition is that he cannot become a member of the House of Representatives because he is not a Nepali citizen, so the constitutional bench could not speak on this matter.
“Despite the dispute over citizenship and passport, Lamichhane has lost his moral ground after becoming the home minister. The state should now investigate his suspended passport,” constitutionalist Bhimarjun Acharya told Setopati.
After the recent elections, a complaint was filed with the Home Ministry to investigate Lamichhane’s citizenship and passport. Then the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote to District Administration Office Kathmandu to investigate.
The police started investigation on December 2, 2022 after District Administration Office, Kathmandu wrote a letter to District Police Complex Kathmandu for investigation on Lamichhane’s citizenship and passport dispute.
The Abuse of Authority Investigation Commission has instructed the Ministry of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs to investigate Lamichhane’s citizenship and passport.
However, the investigation was stopped when he became the home minister.
Advocate Raviraj Basaula and the petitioner also raised the issue of Nepali passports obtained on the basis of illegal citizenship during the hearing of the case of Lamichhane’s disqualification as a Member of Parliament. But the judgment in the passport case was not the main demand of the petitioners.
The Constitutional Bench of Kamu Chief Justice Harikrishna Karki and Justices Vishwambhar Shrestha, Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada, Anand Mohan Bhattarai and Anil Kumar Sinha asked questions about Lamichhane’s passport. Lamichhane’s lawyer replied that he would not discuss the matter as it was under investigation.
“This application is about his citizenship and his disqualification to be a member of parliament. I will not go into the passport issue. The investigation may reveal something,” Lamichhane’s lawyer Narendra Gautam said in the constitutional bench on Friday.
After Gautam spoke, Justice Khatiwada said, ‘You have touched on the subject of citizenship. “Are the facts established that Lamichhane took American citizenship, obtained a Nepali passport in 2015 using illegal Nepali citizenship, and renounced the American passport in 2018?”
Then Khatiwada asked, ‘Can you get a passport by submitting your illegal Nepalese citizenship?
Gautam said that this case is not related to the petition and said that what happened will be known only after investigation.
According to the details submitted to the Supreme Court, Lamichhane obtained citizenship in 1994 from the district administration office in Kathmandu. He took American citizenship in 2014 after he started living in America.
After returning to Nepal on a ‘relative visa’, he started organizing ‘Sidha Kura Janata Sang’. It seems that he obtained a Nepali passport in 2015 using illegal Nepali citizenship. In this way, it has been proven that he knowingly carried American and Nepali passports at the same time.
There was a controversy five years ago because he was working in Nepali despite coming here on a ‘relative visa’. Press Council Nepal also took action against him. Then he applied to the American Embassy in Nepal on May 19, 2018 to renounce his American citizenship.
He applied on June 20, 2018 to the Department of Immigration under the Ministry of Home Affairs to update his records after applying at the US Embassy. The American Embassy gave a letter of acceptance of his resignation on June 28.
