The Supreme Court on Friday said that it will hear the plea by Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mahua Moitra, wherein she has challenged her recent expulsion from the Lok Sabha as an MP in connection with ‘cash-for-query’ allegations, on January 3. Earlier, the matter was listed for hearing today, December 15.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti will hear Moitra’s plea challenging her expulsion.
On December 8, Mahua Moitra, who represents the Krishnanagar Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal, was expelled from the Lower House following the adoption of an Ethics Committee report that found her of “guilty of unethical conduct”.
The Ethics Committee report recommended her expulsion in a ‘cash-for-query’ row wherein it was alleged that she shared her Lok Sabha portal login credentials with businessman Darshan Hiranandani in exchange for “gifts”. The report also called for “an intense, legal, institutional inquiry” by the government “in a time-bound manner” into the cash-for-query allegations against her.
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It was claimed that Hiranandani used this access to upload questions to the Parliament on her behalf in exchange for cash and gifts, breaching the rules of Parliament.
Following her expulsion, Moitra hit out at the ethics panel for “acting without proof” and said it was becoming a “weapon” to “bulldoze” the Opposition. She alleged that the Ethics Committee and its report “broke every rule in the book”.
Cash-for-query row
Earlier in October, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, based on a complaint by Supreme Court lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, had alleged that Moitra had asked questions in Parliament in exchange for cash and gifts from businessman Darshan Hiranandani whose business interests conflicted with those of industrialist Gautam Adani.
Also Read: ‘Broke every rule in book’: Mahua Moitra blasts ethics panel after expulsion as MP
Dubey wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in this regard. Birla referred the matter to an Ethics Committee who conducted an investigation and found Moitra to be “guilty of unethical conduct”.
In an interview with The Indian Express, Moitra had admitted that she gave her Parliament login and password details to Hiranandani, but denied taking any cash from him, as alleged by Supreme Court advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai in his complaint.