Kathmandu, Jan 29 : Former Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane has reached the Kathmandu District Administration Office to get the certificate of Nepali citizenship. On Sunday, he started the process of taking citizenship from the district administration office at Babarmahal, Kathmandu.
Only on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that Lamichhane did not complete the process of regaining citizenship after returning from United States of America. After that decision, Lamichhane lost his position as Home Minister, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). After the Supreme Court’s decision, Lamichhane went to the district administration office to regain his citizenship on Sunday.
According to District Administration Office sources, Lamichhane will get his citizenship on Sunday.
Advocates Rabiraj Basaula and Yuvraj Paudel filed a petition in the Supreme Court saying that after relinquishing US citizenship, Lamichhane did not complete the process of regaining citizenship according to the laws of Nepal. A constitutional bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Harikrishna Karki, Judge Bishwambhar Shrestha, Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada, Dr. Anand Mohan Bhattarai and Anil Kumar Sinha had decided on Lamichhane’s citizenship.
In Section 10 of the Nepalese Citizenship Act, 2063 BS, there is a clear legal provision that Nepali citizenship will not be maintained if one voluntarily takes foreign citizenship or does not choose Nepali citizenship in the case of being a citizen of Nepal and a foreign country at the same time.
Lamichhane took a certificate of Nepali citizenship based on descent in 2050 BS. Then he went to America and got citizenship there. He took American citizenship in 2070 (2014). On June 5, 2014, he came to Nepal on a non-tourist (relative) visa as an American citizen and started working in Nepal. After that, in 2018, he gave notice to the American Embassy in Nepal for the purpose of renouncing his American citizenship.
He informed that he renounced his US citizenship on 28 June 2018.
