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Key Supreme Court hearing in TMC's Mahua Moitra case today. Details
Mahua Moitra, the MP from Krishnanagar was expelled on December 8 over cash-for-query charges.
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra's plea against her expulsion as a Lok Sabha member over alleged misconduct in the cash-for-query case will be heard by the Supreme Court on Friday.
Mahua Moitra, who was elected from the Krishnanagar Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal, was expelled on December 8 over cash-for-query charges. She was charged for her “direct involvement” in “unethical” conduct.
In her defence, Moitra has alleged “substantial illegality” and “arbitrariness” by the Lok Sabha ethics committee, which recommended the action against her.
Her case will be heard by a bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna. Friday is also the last working day of the Supreme Court as it closes for the winter break.
The hearing comes after Moitra's counsel, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, made hectic attempts in the Supreme Court on Wednesday to get a hearing date on her petition even as the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud assured the petitioner that the court would look into the request for urgent listing.
Singhvi who appeared for the MP mentioned the matter before a bench headed by the CJI a little later than noon and said that despite a letter written to the court registry on Monday, the matter had not shown up on the list. Earlier in the day, when the CJI was sitting on a Constitution bench, Singhvi approached the court of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul with the same request but was asked to mention the matter to the CJI. The mentioning of matters is not permitted before the constitution benches.
Mahua Moitra's expulsion
The Lok Sabha had expelled Mahua Moitra with a voice vote amid a walkout by opposition MPs, adopting an ethics committee report that recommended her expulsion for sharing her login details, and accepting gifts and possibly cash from businessman Darshan Hiranandani.
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In her petition, Mahua Moitra had challenged the disqualification and pointed out not being allowed to defend herself in the Lok Sabha during a discussion on the findings of the ethics panel.
The TMC leader found herself embroiled in the controversy after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey wrote to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla in September on the basis of a complaint by Supreme Court lawyer Jai Anant Dehradai, who alleged that she accepted money and favours to ask questions in Parliament.
In an affidavit to the ethics committee on October 19, Darshan Hiranandani claimed that Moitra provided him with her login ID and password for the Lok Sabha members’ website. The CBI has already filed a preliminary FIR in the case.
