The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice to Lok Sabha secretary general on a plea by TMC leader Mahua Moitra challenging her expulsion from the House on the cash-for-query allegation.

The court was told that her indictment by the Ethics Committee and expulsion was carried out in violation of the rule of natural justice both before the Ethics committee and the House (Lok Sabhas).

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Issuing notice, a bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta gave the Lok Sabha Secretary General three weeks’ time to reply and another three weeks to Mahua Moitra to file her rejoinder to the Secretary General’s reply and posted the matter for further hearing in the week commencing from March 11, 2024.

Justice Khanna issued notice to the Lok Sabha Secretary General despite Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urging the bench not to issue notice as he is present representing him.

“Kindly don’t issue notice to the Secretary General”, Solicitor General Mehta told the bench.

“We have to issue notice” Justice Khanna said, pointing out in the order that there are a number of issues including the jurisdiction and the powers of the judicial review in respect of the matters relating to another constitutional organ (Parliament).

At the outset of the hearing, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the petitioner Mahua Moitra, told the bench that twice there was infraction of the rule of natural justice in the matter leading to the expulsion of TMC leader – both in the proceedings before the Ethics Committee and the Lok Sabha as well.

Singhvi told the bench in the proceedings before the Ethics Committee, Moitra was not allowed to cross-examine two complainants despite repeated requests. He said that both the complainants were putting onus on each other to approach Moitra for asking questions relating to a corporate issue.

“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,” Singhvi told the bench.

Singhvi said that the day the Ethics Committee report was tabled in Lok Sabha, on that day itself resolution for expulsion too was moved. He said that the first instalment of the Ethics Committee report was uploaded at 12.00 noon and the final sixth instalment of the report was uploaded at 02.39 pm.

And the discussion on the motion seeking her expulsion started at 02.00 pm.

Senior advocate said that at no stage the members had time and opportunity to go through the Ethic Committee report to meaningfully participate in the discussion on the resolution.

Noting the submission by Singhvi on the timeline given by him, the bench said that they will examine the issue.

However, when Singhvi pressed on Moitra’s application for interim relief so that she may be permitted to participate in the proceedings of the House without voting rights, Justice Khanna said, “No, no. Do you think the matter is so simple” and said that the application for interim relief is there and we will take a call on the next date of hearing.

Mohua Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha after it passed a resolution to unseat her from the House. She was expelled in the wake of a recommendation by an Ethics Committee for her disqualification as an MP.

Moitra had moved the top court on December 11, 2023, challenging her expulsion.

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 Ethics Committee adopted the report by a majority of 6:4 in November 2023. The report on Moitra’s alleged 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 has 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.