The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on Friday tabled its report on Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra’s cash-for-query case, recommending that she should be expelled from the Lower House. The panel has also recommended for an investigation by the Government of India in time bound manner into this case.
The ethics panel report reads:
- The serious misdemeanours on the part of Mahua Moitra call for severe punishment. The Committee, therefore, recommend that Mahua Moitra, MP may be expelled from the Membership of the Seventeenth Lok Sabha.
- In view of the highly objectionable, unethical, heinous and criminal conduct of Mahua Moitra, the Committee recommends for an intense, legal, institutional inquiry by the Government of India in a time-bound manner.
Meanwhile, Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written to the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla after the panel report was tabled in the House.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “I would request that Members may be given sufficient time of 3-4 days at least to study the report and prepare themselves for the discussion in the House. I would therefore request you to fix a day and time at least 3 days from now, for taking up the discussion in the Ethics Committee Report.”
As soon as the House met again after the adjournment till noon, the Opposition members raised slogans against the government.
The Trinamool Congress MPs raised slogans against the government and the BJP. They raised slogans like ‘taanashahi band karo’, ‘Bharat ki beti ka apmaan nahi sahenge’.
Rajendra Agrawal, who was in the Chair in the House, asked the Trinamool Congress members to sit as the report had only been tabled in the House. However, the Trinamool Congress members kept on raising slogans in the House.
Following the ruckus, the Speaker adjourned the House till 2 pm.
What is the charge against Mahua Moitra?
Moitra is facing the charge of alleged ‘cash for Parliament questions’. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had referred the complaint of BJP MP Nishiknat Dubey against Moitra to the Ethics Committee.
On November 9, the Parliament’s Ethics Committee adopted the draft report against Moitra in connection with the charges of alleged ‘cash for Parliament questions’ and submitted it to the Lok Sabha Speaker with the panel’s recommendations.
On November 2, Moitra along with the opposition MPs of the Committee stormed out of the meeting accusing the committee’s chairperson Vinod Sonkar of asking her personal and unethical questions.
On October 26, Dubey and advocate Dehadrai gave “oral evidence” to the panel against Moitra.
With inputs from IANS
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