In 2013, Maoist leader Ram Narayan Bidari was one of the lawyers to defend Lokman Singh Karki in the Supreme Court when the latter’s appointment as the chief of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) was challenged.

Cut to 2017.

Bidari now is the chair of a subcommittee of the Impeachment Recomm-endation Committee (IRC) of Parliament, which is tasked with investigating into charges filed against Karki by lawmakers who have registered an impeachment motion against him.

“This is against the principle of natural justice,” said Advocate Om Prakash Aryal, who had challenged Karki’s appointment in court and relentlessly pursued the case until the bench ruled in his favour two weeks ago. “This attracts the doctrine of bias,” Aryal added.

Karki, who was appointed as the CIAA chief on May 8, 2013, lost his job after the apex court on January 8 annulled his appointment and declared him unfit for holding the post.

During a hearing on Karki’s case back in 2013, Bidari had argued that Karki was eligible to hold the post.

Bidari, however, claimed that in 2013 he was playing a role of a professional lawyer and that he was not a lawmaker at that point of time. Bidari added that he was one of the 157 lawmakers who had filed the impeachment motion against Karki.

Even some members of the IRC have raised questions over the impartially in investigation when a person who defended the accused in the past is at the helm of the sub-panel tasked with probing the matter.

But Bidari appeared unfazed. “It was a case of eligibility then [in 2013] and it’s about Karki’s deeds now. These are purely two different things,” Bidari told the Post.

But Advocate Aryal would not take the issue as purely as Bidari tried to put across.

“This is about propriety,” said Aryal, adding that the [impeachment] case now involves serious moral questions and it cannot be viewed only from legal perspective, as the legal case against Karki has already been put to rest by the court. How a person who worked as a counsel to somebody who now stands accused in Parliament can carry out impartial investigation, argued Aryal. “Bidari was paid by Karki to argue on his behalf. His current role [as the chair of the sub-committee] can lead to conflict of interest,” he said.

The 11-member IRC, which comprises two members from the Maoist Centre, was formed on October 19—the same day the impeachment motion was registered at the Parliament Secretariat.

A member of the committee said the Maoist Centre could have sent Aman Lal Modi, the second Maoist member in the IRC, to the sub-committee. “I think Bidari has been appointed as the sub-committee chair with the motive to acquit Karki,” said an IRC member requesting anonymity.

The subcommittee was formed on Wednesday after Attorney General Raman Kumar Shrestha’s advice that impeachment motion against Karki could be moved forward even though the court had annulled his appointment. The subcommittee, which has Deepak Kuikel of the Nepali Congress and Rewati Raman Bhandari of the CPN-UML, has been given 15 days for investigation starting Friday.

In the impeachment motion, the lawmakers have charged Karki with breaching the constitution, taking law into own hands, abusing authority to terrorise people, undermining Parliament by defying House panels’ summons and contempt of court.