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Journalism of Courage
The Ethics Committee of Lok Sabha, which inquired into the cash-for-query allegations levelled by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey against TMC MP Mahua Moitra, is learnt to have recommended her expulsion from the 17th Lok Sabha in its draft report.
The panel will meet Thursday to adopt the report. It will then be sent to the Lok Sabha Speaker.
The draft report, it is learnt, has also admonished BSP MP Danish Ali for violating Rule 275 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha which deals with confidentiality of proceedings of Parliamentary committees.
The report mentions the names of Opposition MPs, including Ali, who had objected to panel chairman Vinod Kumar Sonkar’s line of questioning at the last meeting earlier this month.
Opposition members in the panel are expected to submit dissent notes, disagreeing with the recommendations of the 15-member panel in which the ruling NDA has a majority.
Moitra and five members of the Opposition – Ali, Congress’s Uttam Kumar Reddy and V Vaithilingam, CPM’s P R Natarajan and JD(U)’s Giridhari Yadav, had walked out of the panel’s meeting on November 2.
Reddy, Congress MP from Nalgonda, said he has written to panel’s chairman Sonkar to postpone the November 9 meeting as he has to file his nomination in Telangana.
Moitra had claimed Tuesday that the meeting of the panel was rescheduled from November 6 to November 9 to clash with a Congress member’s filing of his nomination from Telangana so as to deplete Opposition numbers.
Meanwhile, Dubey claimed that the Lokpal had forwarded his complaint against Moitra to the CBI for investigation.
“They informed me that they have referred it to the CBI, which is the Lokpal’s agency to investigate,” Dubey told The Indian Express.
In her response, Moitra, in a post on X, said, “For media calling me — my answer: 1. CBI needs to first file FIR on ₹13,000 crore Adani coal scam. 2. National security issue is how dodgy FPI owned (inc Chinese & UAE ) Adani firms buying Indian ports & airports with @HMOIndia clearance. Then CBI welcome to come, count my shoe.” she said.
In another post on X, she said, “Lokpal abhi Zinda hai (Lokpal is still alive).”
The cash-for-query allegations involving Moitra surfaced last month after Dubey wrote two letters – one to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, claiming there were allegations that Moitra took bribes to protect the interest of the Hiranandani Group; and the other to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, urging him to investigate the IP addresses of Moitra’s log-in credentials for Lok Sabha to check if they had been accessed by someone else.
The Ethics Committee had examined Dubey and lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai regarding the complaint against Moitra.
Hiranandani, on the other hand, had in a sworn affidavit to the panel claimed that Moitra had provided him her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions” directly “on her behalf when required”.
In an interview to The Indian Express, Moitra had admitted that she gave her Parliament login and password details to Hiranandani but denied taking any cash from him, as alleged by Dehadrai in his complaint to the CBI.
