Two days after a full bench of the Supreme Court decided to review its earlier verdict regarding his appointment as the chief of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), Lokman Singh Karki flew to Canada on September 19.

He was on a leave for 19 days to participate in some programmes at the invitation of anti-corruption and related agencies of Canada.

But he is yet to return home. Where is Karki then?

CIAA Deputy Spokesperson Khagendra Rijal said he was not authorised to disclose his “whereabouts as the CIAA chief is on home leave”. “What I can confirm is he is neither in Canada nor in Nepal,” Rijal told the Post.

Karki had left Canada for the Gulf region on October 8. He was said to have visited Jordan and Qatar, among others.

Multiple sources familiar to his trip, including one senior official from Karki’ office, said that the CIAA chief had reached the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Qatar on Tuesday.

“He was in Qatar on Tuesday and left for the UAE the same day,” said the sources familiar to Karki’s itinerary, adding that he is planning to return Nepal via India where he is scheduled to land on Thursday.

“But we cannot say for sure how many days he will spend in India. He is planning to fly to India on Thursday, but we don’t know whether he is going to catch a flight to Kathmandu immediately.”

A Kathmandu-based local travel agency, which is handling Karki’s itinerary, including hotel and flight bookings, refused to give details.

He has communicated to the travel agency that he “is returning to Nepal soon” but has not given the exact date of return, sources told the Post.

According to Karki’s website (lokmankarki.com), on October 5, he held a meeting with Joe Friday, Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada in Ottawa.

Meanwhile, Karki’s application for 10 more days’ leave was approved by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Tuesday. CIAA Deputy Spokesperson Rijal confirmed that the Office of the President sanctioned the leave effective from Monday.

Earlier, he had sought two days’ additional leave for Friday and Sunday.