Suspended Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana is set to return to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
CJ Rana told Setopati that he is going to the Supreme Court as he has received a letter from the Parliament Secretariat stating that the impeachment motion registered against him has become inactive.
The Parliament Secretariat confirmed that the letter has been sent to CJ Rana.
Dasharath Dhamala, deputy spokesperson at the Parliament Secretariat, said that a letter regarding the impeachment motion has been sent to all bodies concerned on Wednesday.
However, the Supreme Court said that it has not received any letter regarding the impeachment motion.
According to Supreme Court spokesperson Bimal Paudel, they have not received any letter or information about the impeachment motion having become inactive.
A Supreme Court justice also confirmed that no such letter has arrived at the court from the Parliament. Rana cannot return to the court as chief justice until the Parliament sends such a letter to the Supreme Court, the justice added.
It has come to light that CJ Rana had sent an application to the general secretary of the Federal Parliament on Tuesday seeking information that the impeachment motion had become ineffective.
In his application, CJ Rana had stated that he should be allowed to perform his regular duties as chief justice as the impeachment motion had become ineffective with the end of the Parliament’s term.
He had also requested the Federal Parliament Secretariat to inform the bodies concerned so that he could carry out his regular duties.
Responding to his letter, General Secretary of the Federal Parliament Bharat Raj Gautam on Wednesday sent him a letter stating that the impeachment motion has become inactive.
A total of 98 ruling HoR members had registered the impeachment motion against CJ Rana on February 13, leveling 21 different charges against him. He has been suspended since then.
CPN (Maoist Center) lawmaker Dev Gurung, who had proposed the impeachment motion along with Pushpa Bhusal of Nepali Congress (NC) and Jeevan Ram Shrestha of CPN (Unified Socialist), had presented the impeachment proposal for discussion in the House on March 13.
Clause 161 of the HoR regulations has set a deadline for each step in a way that the speaker cannot sit on the process once an impeachment proposal is registered. The speaker is obliged to set a date for discussion within seven days of registration. If the House session is not on, the House session should be called within 15 days and discussion on the proposal held within three days of the start of session as per the regulations.
But Speaker Sapkota had not held discussion in almost three months after start of the budget session of the federal parliament.
Before the impeachment motion was registered, CJ Rana's resignation was being sought from inside the judiciary too. The majority of SC justices had demanded CJ Rana's resignation following accusations of seeking a share in Cabinet expansion, controversies including picking bench in different cases including those about HoR dissolution, accusations about CJ Rana getting a share of spoils in appointments at constitutional bodies, involvement of CJ Rana in the case about the Constitutional Council, delay in the hearing of case filed making CJ Rana a defendant, and allegations about him seeking share in the Cabinet.
