NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday set April 29 as the day for hearing a plea seeking the expulsion of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders who were allegedly seen taking bribes in a Narada News-organised video sting operation.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan earlier last month referred the alleged bribery case involving the TMC leaders to the Ethics Committee for investigation and report.
The Committee has sought individual responses from the five Lok Sabha members.
The Ethics Committee will submit its report after examining all the facts.
The five TMC parliamentarians are Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmad, Suvendu Adhikari, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Prasun Banerjee.
The video footage released by the Narada news portal during the budget session of parliament had shown these five MPs and party's Rajya Sabha member Mukul Roy, a known confidant of party supremo Mamata Banerjee, taking currency notes in return of favour and lobbying for a fictitious firm.
The allegations of phone tapping came after TMC floor leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O'Brien raised the bogie of influence of black money against the portal.
O'Brien had claimed in the upper house of the Parliament that the day the first video footage was released, telephone calls were made to the news portal from Dubai.
A sting operation by a news portal allegedly showed several Trinamool Congress leaders accepting money in return for lobbying for a private firm.