NEW DELHI: A two-judge Supreme Court bench on Friday adjourned hearing on Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra’s petition challenging her expulsion from Lok Sabha, to January 3 next year. The bench, headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna and also comprising Justice SVN Bhatti, adjourned the plea, saying that he has not seen the files at all and hence, they needed some time to read the document.
“I will like to go through the file. We can have (the hearing) on January 3,” he said. Moitra had approached the top court on Monday, three days after her expulsion from Lok Sabha over reported misconduct in a ‘cash-for-query’ allegation. The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee had found the 49-year-old MP guilty in the case.
“Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and former Lok Sabha MP, Mahua Moitra, has filed a petition before the Supreme Court and challenged her expulsion from the Lower House of Parliament and sought relief in the ‘cash-for-query’ scam case,” her lawyer said on Friday.
Mahua’s petition sought enforcement of her fundamental rights recognised by the Constitution. “The ethics committee order is unfair, unjust and arbitrary,” it said. The ethics committee has committed a severe illegality and Moitra was denied the principles of natural justice during the committee’s inquiry on her, the petition alleged. The petition also said that the MP was innocent in the case.