A writ has been registered at the Supreme Court against the decision of the Office of the Attorney General not to prosecute Rastriya Swatantra Party President Rabi Lamichhane in the passport misuse case.

The writ application submitted by plaintiff Yubaraj Poudel was registered by the Chief Registrar of the apex court on Monday.

According to Supreme Court spokesperson Bimal Paudel, the hearing on the petition has been scheduled for Tuesday.

The plaintiff has demanded that the March 20 decision of the Attorney General not to file a case against Lamichhane be overturned through a referral order and a mandamus order be issued in the name of the defendants to conduct a fair investigation into the case.

“There is no legal provision for an American citizen to get a Nepali passport,” Paudel’s writ states. “Rabi Lamichhane’s act of acquiring a Nepali passport by giving false information that he is a Nepali citizen even though he was an American citizen at the time is a criminal and punishable offence.”

Earlier, Paudel filed a complaint against Lamichhane. However, the Office of the Attorney General gave a clean chit to Lamichhane in the case of possession of dual passports citing a Nepal Police report which stated that since the old Nepali citizenship that he acquired had already been deactivated, there was no need to file a case on the matter.

Based on his old citizenship, Lamichhane had obtained his Nepali passport from the Nepali Embassy in Washington DC on May 27, 2015. At the time of obtaining the Nepali passport, he was also a US citizen. Lamichhane obtained US citizenship in 2014 and left the US in 2018. As per the Passport Act, an attempt to get a passport by providing false information is a criminal offence. Lamichhane also obtained a US passport on March 5, 2014.

Lamichhane, who won the House of Representatives seat from Chitwan-2 during the November 20 elections and was later appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, was stripped of all posts following a verdict of the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court stating that the Nepali citizenship certificate he produced to contest the election was invalid.

The Constitutional Bench had said that his failure to re-acquire Nepali citizenship after renouncing his United States citizenship prevented him from becoming a national lawmaker.

Meanwhile, Lamichhane has already reacquired Nepali citizenship and is preparing to contest the by-election from Chitwan-2, which became vacant after the court invalidated his election as lawmaker. For reelection, he filed his candidacy from Chitwan-2 on Monday.