On 3rd January, the Supreme Court instructed the Lok Sabha Secretary General to respond to Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) leader Mahua Moitra’s plea challenging her expulsion from the Lok Sabha in a cash-for-query case. Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta scheduled the hearing for the week starting March 11, with a two-week deadline for the Secretariat’s response and a three-week timeline for Moitra to reply.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi requested interim relief, allowing Moitra to attend Lok Sabha proceedings during the legal process. The bench declined to issue an order on interim relief at the present stage, stating it would be addressed when listed.
Moitra, former MP from Krishnanagar constituency in West Bengal, was expelled on December 8, 2023, following a discussion on the Ethics Committee’s report on the ‘cash for query’ case. Singhvi argued during the hearing that the key finding against Moitra was her unauthorized sharing of MP portal login credentials, a practice common among many MPs. Justice Khanna questioned if Moitra admitted sharing OTP with Hiranandani, to which Singhvi clarified that such sharing is a standard practice.
Moitra contested her expulsion, alleging a lack of ethical guidelines, and criticized the reliance on conflicting testimonies from two private citizens in the committee’s findings. She claimed the two testimonies, based on which she was expelled, were polar opposites and that she was denied the right to cross-examine them.
The Ethics Committee’s report, adopted by a 6:4 majority, recommended Moitra’s expulsion and called for a time-bound institutional inquiry by the central government into her ‘Unethical Conduct.’ The report highlighted Moitra’s visits to the UAE from 2019 to 2023 and multiple logins to her account during that period.
