Nepal's ex-chief justice arrested days after Supreme Court ends impeachment proceedings
Police officials said the former judge was brought in for necessary investigation and that more information about the case would be made public soon.
Cholendra Shumsher Rana, a former chief justice of Nepal, was arrested on Sunday after a complaint was lodged against him with the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office.
A team of the specialised investigative unit took him into custody from his residence in Kathmandu. The police did not publicly disclose details of the complaint or the allegations in the immediate aftermath of the arrest.
Officials said the former judge was brought in for necessary investigation and that more information about the case would be made public soon.
WHO IS CHOLENDRA SHUMSHER RANA?
Rana became the Chief Justice of Nepal's Supreme Court on January 2, 2019.
He was automatically suspended under constitutional provisions on February 13, 2022, after Parliament initiated impeachment proceedings against him following allegations of misconduct, corruption and judicial interference.
However, the parliamentary session concluded without ever deciding on the impeachment motion.
This paved the way for a lengthy legal battle that ended earlier this month when a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment motion had lost its purpose.
Dismissing a related petition, the court ordered the release of Rana's pension and all other retirement-related payments. In its verdict, the court pointed out that the impeachment proceedings against him had never been completed.
During his tenure as chief justice, Rana had also headed the constitutional bench that rejected then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's decision to dissolve Parliament.
At the time, the bench also ordered the appointment of Sher Bahadur Deuba, who led an alliance of the Nepali Congress and the Maoists against Oli, as prime minister.