The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a show cause notice to the Office of the Attorney General for not lodging a case against Rastriya Swatantra Party President Rabi Lamichhane in a case of passport misuse.

Responding to a writ petition filed by Yubaraj Paudel, the court has given 15 days to the Attorney General’s Office to respond explaining the reasons for giving clean chit to Lamichhane. A single bench of Justice Hari Phuyal also decided to seek the proof of Lamichhane surrendering his American passport, if he did so.

Lamichhane claims that he renounced his American passport in 2018. “Receive and produce the documents that prove Rabi Lamichhane had surrendered his American passport either to the Department of Immigration or the District Administration Office Kathmandu,” reads the court’s order.

Paudel on Monday had moved the court against the decision of the Attorney General not to prosecute Lamichhane in the passport case. Paudel 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.”

The Office of the Attorney General gave a clean chit to Lamichhane in the case 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.

Lamichhane had obtained his Nepali passport from the Nepali Embassy in Washington DC on May 27, 2015 based on the old citizenship that was automatically invalided after he acquired the American citizenship. At the time of obtaining the Nepali passport, he was 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.