After recording “oral evidence” of BJP MP Nishikant Dubey regarding his allegations against TMC member Mahua Moitra on cash for query in Parliament, the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on Thursday asked Moitra to appear before it on October 31.
Dubey told the panel that it was an “open and shut” case and the TMC member should be disqualified. He recalled the 2005 expulsion of 11 MPs, who were caught in a sting operation accepting bribes for asking fixed questions in Parliament, to make his point.
Sources said Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai gave “oral evidence” to the panel against Moitra during the day, after which its chairperson Vinod Kumar Sonkar said the committee will also seek assistance from the Ministries of Home Affairs and IT in probing the allegations.
In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla dated October 15, Dubey said advocate Dehadrai, close to Moitra before they fell out, has shared “irrefutable evidence of bribes exchanged” between her and businessman Darshan Hiranandani to target the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Birla had referred the matter to the Ethics Committee. Sources said the panel’s meeting began with sharp differences among the 10 members present, excluding the chairperson, regarding who they should hear first, the complainant or the accused, which led to a vote to resolve the matter.
Opposition members cited the recent case involving BSP MP Danish Ali and BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri as an example. They noted that another parliamentary panel had called the ruling party member accused of making derogatory comments in Parliament to testify first. In contrast, the Ethics Committee recorded the statement of Dubey, the complainant, during its first meeting.
The vote ended in a tie as the members, five of the BJP and five of Opposition parties, voted on partisan lines, with the Chair casting his deciding vote in favour of hearing Dubey first as scheduled.
After the meeting, Sonkar, a BJP MP, told the media, “We have decided to ask Moitra to appear before us on October 31.” Eleven of the committee’s 15 members attended the meeting.
In his statement before the panel, Dubey pitched for her disqualification saying the matter pertains to Parliament’s dignity and is an issue of national security, sources said, adding that he noted it was an “open and shut” case as even businessman Hiranandani, who allegedly paid her bribes, has admitted to the charge.
Some panel members belonging to Opposition parties, including BSP’s Danish Ali and JD(U)’s Giridhari Yadav, called for taking a lenient view in the matter as she was a first-term MP, to which Dubey insisted that an example should be made of her to serve as a lesson to other parliamentarians, sources said.
The meeting had its share of heated moments as Congress MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy raised the issue of Dubey’s alleged fake degree, a matter often flagged by Moitra, prompting a strong rebuttal as he said the matter has been visited by constitutional bodies like the Election Commission and the Supreme Court, sources said.
He said an FIR in the fake degree matter was quashed by a High Court and the Supreme Court upheld it while the EC too agreed with his contention. It seems some people think they are above the Supreme Court and that they are involved in corruption and posing a threat to national security, he claimed.
Sources mentioned the committee is also likely to seek a response from the Ministry of External Affairs as a matter of protocol as Hiranandani, accused of giving bribes to Moitra so that she can ask questions in Parliament at his behest, filed an affidavit admitting to the charges before India’s consulate in Dubai.
Moitra so far has dismissed the charges as a “jilted ex’s lies”.
