The Supreme Court has ruled that the citizenship certificate Rabi Lamichhane presented during the parliamentary election was invalid, hence, the status of Rabi Lamichhane as a lawmaker has been revoked on Friday.
Meanwhile, Lamichhane’s position as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister has also gone with the annulment of his position as a lawmaker by the Supreme Court.
Similarly, he is also disqualified as the Chairman of the Rastriya Swatantra Party.
The Constitutional Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Hari Krishna Karki and Justices Bishwambhar Prasad Shrestha, Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada, Dr Ananda Mohan Bhattarai and Anil Kumar Sinha concluded the hearing today and issued the verdict.
Advocates Rabi Raj Basaula, Yuba Raj Poudel had filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court challenging the Rastriya Swatantra Party president Lamichhane’s qualification as the elected member of the House of Representatives claiming he doesn’t have Nepali citizenship.
Earlier Lamichhane had relinquished his American citizenship in 2018 after a complaint was lodged in the Press Council Nepal saying that he was working in Nepal without a work permit.
However, Lamichhane never applied to reclaim his citizenship and the court said that all the acts carried out by Rabi as a Nepali politician would be illegal for using the citizenship that had been revoked without regaining his Nepalese citizenship.
On the other hand, Lamichhane’s lawyers have argued that as he never renounced Nepali citizenship so his old citizenship automatically got revived after he surrendered his American citizenship.
