Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on Wednesday assured the Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) leader Mahua Moitra that he will look into the request for an urgent listing of her petition challenging her expulsion from Lok Sabha in an alleged ‘cash-for-query’ case.
Upon a mentioning by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi seeking an urgent listing of Mahua Moitra’s petition, the Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked him to send an Email and he will look into it during lunch break.
Chief Justice Chandrachud heading a bench also comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra told Singhvi that “The matter may not have been registered… If an email was sent, then I would look at it right away. Please send it.”
Earlier in the morning, Singhvi had approached the bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kasul – senior most top court after the Chief Justice of India – for an urgent listing of Moitra’s petition.
However, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul heading a bench also comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said, “Let the Chief Justice of India (Justice D.Y. Chandrachud) take call. I do not want to take a call at this stage.”
As the bench was told that Chief Justice Chandrachud was heading a constitution bench hearing matters, Justice Kaul said, “Place before CJI in the afternoon. He will take the call.”
Justice Kaul is demitting office as top court judge on December 25, 2023
Moitra’s plea for an urgent listing of her petition is faced with time constraint as the Supreme Court will be working just for the remaining two days of the week (Thursday and Friday – December 14 & 15) before it goes into two-week Christmas and New Year holidays from December 18 to January 1, 2024. December 16 & December 17, are weekends when the top court does not work.
Mohua Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha after it passed a resolution to expel her from the parliament. The Lok Sabha passed the resolution in the wake of a recommendation by an Ethics Committee for her disqualification as an MP.
Lok Sabha passed the resolution on December 8, 2023. Moitra moved the top court challenging her expulsion on December 11, 2023.
The Ethics Committee found her “guilty of unethical conduct” and called for “an intense, legal, institutional inquiry’ by the government “in a time-bound manner” into the cash-for-query allegations against her.
The report was adopted by a majority of 6:4 in the ethics 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.
Moitra, who was not allowed to speak during the discussion in the House, said that the Ethics committee broke every rule. She has alleged that she has been found guilty of contravening a code of ethics that ‘does not exist’.
Moitra further stated that the findings of the Ethics Committee are based solely on the written testimonies of two private citizens whose versions contradict each other in material terms and she was denied the right to cross-examine them.