The Federal Parliament Secretariat has clarified that although it received an application seeking the registration of an impeachment motion against Supreme Court Justice Kumar Regmi and Prem Kumar Rai, chief commissioner of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the application has not been formally registered as an impeachment motion under the law.
A few weeks ago, a person named Shankar Rajak had submitted an application to the secretariat seeking impeachment proceedings against Justice Regmi and Chief Commissioner Rai.
Following discussions about possible impeachment of the two high-ranking public officials, Eak Ram Giri, joint secretary and spokesperson for the Parliament Secretariat, clarified that the application could not be registered as an impeachment motion because it had not fulfilled the constitutional and legal requirements.
“Receiving a complaint seeking impeachment and registering an impeachment motion are two different things,” Giri said. “As the procedures prescribed by the Parliament Rules have not been fulfilled, it has not been registered either with the House or the Secretariat as an impeachment motion. It remains merely a general application.”
Under Nepal’s Constitution and the House of Representatives Rules, there are two clear ways to initiate impeachment proceedings against officials of constitutional bodies.
First, an impeachment motion must be directly registered with the signatures of at least one-fourth (25 percent) of the total number of members currently serving in the House of Representatives.
Second, if a citizen files a complaint, it must be formally endorsed (recommended) by at least three members of the House of Representatives before it can be taken up by Parliament.
According to Giri, no lawmaker has endorsed Rajak’s application.
Furthermore, the House of Representatives’ Impeachment Recommendation Committee, which is authorized to conduct preliminary investigations and examine evidence related to such complaints, has not yet been formed.
Under parliamentary procedure, a complaint endorsed by three lawmakers is forwarded to the recommendation committee. Even if the committee deems the complaint appropriate and submits it to Parliament, the motion must still secure the support of at least one-fourth of the members of the House.
Justice Regmi, against whom impeachment has been sought, is the third-ranking senior judge of the Supreme Court after the chief justice. Rai heads the country’s principal constitutional body responsible for controlling corruption.
Under Article 101 of the Constitution, a two-thirds majority of the total number of members of the House of Representatives is required to remove such high-ranking officials from office through impeachment.
According to the Parliament Secretariat, a formal impeachment motion must be registered with the secretary-general or, in their absence, with the secretary of the House of Representatives, as required by law.
However, the secretariat has concluded that the application recently submitted is procedurally incomplete and therefore has no legal or constitutional status as an impeachment motion.
