Police on Sunday said former chief justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana was brought to the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office after a security threat.

Rameshwar Karki, superintendent of police at the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office, told Kantipur that Rana was brought to the office after police sensed a security challenge. “He is staying at a safe place,” Karki said.

He did not disclose what prompted the police to perceive a security threat to Rana.

Asked whether Rana would be released on Sunday, Karki said there was no plan to pursue a case against him.

“He will be released. It is not a matter of filing a case or anything like that,” he said.

A police team went to Rana’s residence in Maharajgunj while he was asleep early Sunday morning and asked him to accompany them to the police office. The police did not provide him with an arrest warrant.

Rana was brought to the police office at around 3am, after which the police publicly described the action as an arrest.

Rana’s family said police arrived at their residence and told them he faced a security threat.

“We were all asleep when the police called us at around 3am. They said there was a security threat to him,” a family member said.

According to the family, police told Rana they needed to take him with them for a while, citing security concerns involving Gen Z activists and others.

“Rana said he would put on some clothes and come. He also asked them to add more security personnel at the residence. But the police officers, who said they had come from the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office in Teku, told him to come with them, saying there would be no problem,” the family member said.

The family said police assured Rana that he would be back shortly.

“They took him saying he would return in a while. We have no idea what allegation he faces or why he was taken,” the family member said.

Rana became chief justice on January 1, 2019. Parliament registered an impeachment motion against him on February 13, 2022, following which he was suspended.

The impeachment motion remained pending in Parliament for an extended period. After the parliamentary session ended, the then secretary-general of the Federal Parliament Secretariat wrote a letter declaring the motion inactive.

A writ petition was subsequently filed at the Supreme Court challenging the secretary-general’s decision.

On September 9, the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench ruled that the impeachment motion against Rana had lost its purpose and dismissed the petition.

The four-member Constitutional Bench, led by Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Sharma, issued the ruling while dismissing four writ petitions related to the case.