Nepal cannot confirm whether its pick for ambassador to Japan gave up his Japanese permanent residency (PR), because Japan has refused to share the records. The nominee is Jigyan Kumar Thapa. The refusal does not show he still holds PR or broke any rule.
The Parliamentary Hearing Committee had asked, through Nepal’s Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Tokyo, for details of his PR status and any Japanese public positions or payments. Japanese authorities said the information was personal and private. The Foreign Ministry passed that answer to the committee informally and was asked to put it in writing. Japan’s actual reply has not been published.
The timeline so far
The Cabinet recommended 13 ambassadorial nominees, including Thapa, on September 18. They were registered with the committee on September 23. At the hearing on October 14, lawmakers asked about his Japanese PR, his family’s residency, property in Japan and his work with Japanese public institutions. The committee did not decide and sought more information. It wrote to the Foreign Ministry on October 11 and again on October 26. On October 30 it announced a meeting for November 2 at 3 p.m. at Singha Durbar.
The committee has a 45 days to act under Rule 26(2) of the Federal Parliament Joint Meeting and Committee (Operation) Rules, 2024, and the reported deadline is November 5. If it communicates no decision by then, the rule says nothing legally blocks the appointment.
The constitutional question
Article 291 of the Constitution says a Nepali citizen who has foreign permanent residency cannot be elected, nominated or appointed to a position under the Constitution. A person who renounces it becomes eligible once at least three months have passed.
At the hearing, Thapa said he obtained Japanese PR in 2018 and renounced it in March 2026. If that is true and legally effective, more than three months had passed before the September 18 recommendation. But the committee has not received documents proving the renunciation, and the date and legal effect still need to be confirmed.
Family and property
Thapa acknowledged that his wife still holds Japanese PR and that a house in Japan is registered in her name. His children reportedly keep Japanese PR too. Earlier the house was described as his, while later coverage of the hearing attributed it to his wife. That difference needs resolving. Family residency and a spouse’s property are not automatically evidence of wrongdoing. The committee has to decide whether they create a conflict of interest, which depends on who owns the property, how it was bought and what financial interest he has in it.
His work in Japan
Thapa was born in Nepal in 1979, moved to Japan in 2000 to study and holds a master’s degree in International Relations and Law from Yokohama National University. He has worked at the Kanagawa International Foundation since 2009, and that he has been involved in Nepal-Japan exchanges, cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), UNICEF and local governments, and relief work after the 2011 and 2015 earthquakes.
The committee wants to know whether those roles were jobs, advisory work, formal appointments or unpaid, and whether any was funded from public money. Working with a government-funded body is not the same as being a government employee. Experience is also separate from eligibility.
Politics inside the ruling side
The October 14 meeting was suspended after lawmakers from the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party argued the nomination should be rejected.
How ambassadors are appointed
The government recommends a name, the Parliamentary Hearing Committee examines the nominee, and the appointment goes ahead after that. Article 292 provides for the hearing. The committee has 15 members, 12 from the House of Representatives and three from the National Assembly.
What happens next
On November 2 the committee may endorse the nomination, reject it, or ask for more clarification. Key documents would be Thapa’s official proof of renunciation, his full hearing submission, the ministry’s correspondence and Japan’s written reply, and records of his work and any payments. Whatever the committee decides, it will have done so without Japan’s records.
