KATHMANDU, Oct 20: Parliament on Wednesday formed Impeachment Recommendation Committee (IRC) as stipulated in the Constitution of Nepal. This paves way for deposing president, vice president, chief justice and justices at Supreme Court and commissioners at various constitutional bodies from office through impeachment if they are found to have breached professional integrity in the course of discharging their duties. 

The formation of IRC is widely seen as a meaningful development as this comes in the wake of various quarters demanding impeachment of CIAA chief Lok Man Singh questioning his professional integrity. The constitutional provision makes it mandatory to obtain consent from the IRC before starting the impeachment process.

The IRC consists of a total of 11 members. While the ruling Nepali Congress (NC) and the main opposition party, CPN-UML have four members each, and the ruling CPN (Maoist Center) and opposition RPP-Nepal have two and one members, respectively, in the committee.

The parliament decided to form the IRC following an agreement on the number of members to be represented from the parties in the panel. The panel could not have been formed for a long time due to internal differences among major parties despite repeated attempts made by House Speaker Onsari Gharti.

With the agreement among parties on Tuesday, Speaker Magar announced Pharmullaha Mansur, Gyanendra Bahadur Karki, Dipak Kuinkel and Kumari Laxmi Rai from the NC; Rewati Raman Bhandari, Sushila Karki, Keshav Badal and Parbat Gurung from the UML; and Aman Lal Modi and Ram Narayan Bidari from the Maoist Center as members of the panel during the parliament meeting on Wednesday. 

 
• parliament
 
• constitution
 
• impeachment recommendation committee (irc)