Cash-for-query Case: SC adjourns Mahua Moitra's plea against her Lok Sabha expulsion till January 3

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Mahua Moitra against her expulsion from Lok Sabha in a cash-for-query case. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti deferred the hearing, saying it had not gone through the case files. "I got the file in the morning; I did not have time to scan it.

Can we keep it on January 3rd or 4th I would like to go through this," Justice Khanna told senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Moitra, and posted the matter on January 3, as reported by ANI. Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha on December 8 for cash-for-query charges. The charge against her was that she had been involved in "unethical" behavior "directly.

Moitra approached the top court, challenging her expulsion from the Lok Sabha. In her defence, Moitra has alleged “substantial illegality" and “arbitrariness" by the Lok Sabha ethics committee, which recommended the action against her, according to a report by Hindustan Times. Justice Sanjiv Khanna led a bench that heard her case on Friday.

In addition, Friday is the last working day for the Supreme Court before it closes for the winter holiday. In the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Moitra's lawyer, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, made a frantic effort to get her petition heard even as the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud promised the petitioner that the court would look into the urgent listing request. Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha by a voice vote amid a walkout by opposition MPs, following an ethics committee recommendation to expel her for sharing her log-in details and accepting gifts from businessman Darshan Hiranandani.