NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned to January 3, 2024, the plea of Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) leader Mahua Moitra against her expulsion from Lok Sabha in a cash-for-query case.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti deferred the hearing, saying it had not gone through the case files. “I got the file in the morning; I did not have time to scan it. Can we keep it on January 3rd or 4th? I would like to go through this”, Justice Khanna told senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who was appearing for Moitra, and posted the matter on January 3.
Moitra approached the top court, challenging her expulsion from the Lok Sabha. Moitra was on December 8 expelled from the Lok Sabha after a discussion on the report of the Ethics Committee in the ‘cash for query’ that was tabled in the Lower House.
Moitra, who was not allowed to speak during the discussion inside the House, said that the Ethics Committee broke every rule. Speaking outside Parliament on December 8 she had vowed to fight back. “I am 49 years old and for the next 30 years, I will fight you inside the Parliament and outside; in the gutter and on the streets…We will see the end of you…This is the beginning of your end…We’re going to come back and we’re going to see the end of you”, Moitra had said.
The expelled Lok Sabha MP alleged that she has been found guilty of breaching a code of ethics that ‘does not exist’. Moitra further alleged that the findings are solely based on the written testimonies of two private citizens whose versions contradict each other in material terms and her right to cross-examine them was snatched.
“None of whom I was allowed to cross-examine. One of the two private citizens is my estranged partner, who, with malafide intention, masqueraded as a common citizen in front of the committee. The two testimonies have been used to hang me there at polar opposites to each other”, she said.
The Ethics Committee report probing ‘Unethical Conduct’ of the TMC MP had recommended that Moitra “may be expelled” from the Lok Sabha and called for an “intense, legal, institutional inquiry” by the central government in a “time-bound manner”. The report was adopted by a 6:4 majority in the panel last month. The report on Moitra’s cash-for-query case revealed that she visited the UAE four times from 2019 to 2023, while her login was accessed several times. (ANI)