LS expels Mahua in ‘cash for query' case :TMC leader equates action with 'hanging by a kangaroo court'

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi moved a motion to expel the TMC member for "unethical conduct", which was adopted by a voice vote.

PTI, New Delhi, 8 December 2023 : Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mahua Moitra was expelled on Friday from the LokSabha after the House adopted the report of its Ethics Committee that held her guilty of accepting gifts and illegal gratification from a businessman to further his interest. 

After a heated debate over the panel report during which Moitra was not allowed to speak, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi moved a motion to expel the TMC member for "unethical conduct", which was adopted by a voice vote.
Reacting sharply to her expulsion, Moitra equated the action with hanging by a "kangaroo court" and alleged a parliamentary panel was being weaponised by the Union government to force the Opposition into submission. 

She told reporters that she has been found guilty of breaching a code of ethics that does not exist and that there was no evidence of cash or gift given to her. The Ethics Committee report found Moitra guilty of "unethical conduct" and contempt of the House by sharing her LokSabha credentials -- User ID and Password of LokSabha Member's Portal, with unauthorised persons which had an irrepressible impact on national security. 

The motion moved by Joshi said that Moitra's "conduct has further been found to be unbecoming as a member of parliament for accepting gifts and illegal gratification from a businessman to further his interest which is a serious misdemeanour and highly deplorable conduct" on her part. 

Joshi urged the House to accept the recommendation and finding of the committee and "resolve that continuance of Mahua Moitra as member of LokSabha is untenable and she may be expelled from the membership of the LokSabha".Minutes after her.

This report has broken every rule in the book. In essence you are finding me guilty of breaking a code of ethics that does not exist. Committee is punishing me for engaging in a practice that is routine, accepted and encouraged in the House --------- Mahua Moitra expulsion as a LokSabha member, Moitra said she has been found guilty of breaching a code of ethics that does not exist and that there was no evidence of cash or gift given to her. 

"The 17th LokSabha has indeed been historic, it is the House which saw the passage of Women's Reservation Rescheduling Bill, but it has presided over the most tenacious witch-hunt of one of 78 women MPs, a first-timer, a single woman with no political lineage, from a far-flung constituency on the Bangladesh border," Moitra said.

"This LokSabha has also seen the weaponisation of a parliamentary committee," she said. "This report has broken every rule in the book. In essence you are finding me guilty of breaking a code of ethics that does not exist. Committee is punishing me for engaging in a practice that is routine, accepted and encouraged in the House," Moitra said.

"The findings are based solely on the written testimonies of two private citizens whose versions contradict each other in material terms, none of whom I was allowed to cross-examine," she said. 

"The complainant says I accepted cash and consideration from a businessman to ask questions in furtherance of his commercial interests. But the businessman's suomotu affidavit says I pressured him to upload questions to further my agenda," she said.

Trinamool Congress and other Opposition members demanded that Moitra be allowed to put her views in the House, which was turned down by Speaker Om Birla citing past precedence. Birla observed that in 2005, the then Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had in a directive disallowed 10 LokSabha members, who were involved in a 'cash for questions' scam, to speak in the House.

Joshi said in 2005 the then Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee had moved a motion to expel 10 members on the same day the report was introduced in the LokSabha. 

Earlier, Ethics Committee Chairman Vinod Kumar Sonkar tabled the first report of the Committee on the complaint filed by BJP member Nishikant Dubey against Moitra.