Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra’s challenge to her expulsion from parliament will be heard by the Supreme Court tomorrow.

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SV Bhatti will hear Ms Moitra’s request to restore her Lok Sabha membership.

Ms Moitra has accused the parliamentary ethics committee that looked into cash-for-query allegations against her and recommended her expulsion of “breaking every rule”.

The ethics committee submitted the report in parliament on December 8 after weeks of cross-examining all the people involved in the matter, including the complainants lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai and BJP leader Nishikant Dubey.

Ms Moitra has alleged the committee “broke every rule” in how they handled the matter.

The Trinamool Congress leader has called Mr Dehadrai, who filed the complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), her “jilted ex”.

Following the complaint, Mr Dubey had led the call to investigate the allegation that Ms Moitra gave her parliament login ID to businessman Darshan Hiranandani to target the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Lalit Jha, the alleged mastermind of the security breach in parliament that shocked the nation, has surrendered. Sources said he had gone to the police station on Kartavya Path (the boulevard renamed ‘Path of Duty’ in the heart of Delhi) and surrendered. He has been formally arrested and the New Delhi District Police has handed him over to the Special Cell.

The Kolkata-based teacher was arrested from Delhi after being on the run for nearly two days.

Sources said the man claimed that he had gone by bus to Rajasthan’s Nagaur via Neemrana — where he he was seen last — and stayed at a hotel with two friends. Later, when he realised that the police were looking for him, he came back. At the police station today, he was accompanied by one Mahesh, sources said.

Four persons were arrested for yesterday afternoon’s security breach in which two men — Sagar and Manoranjan — smuggled in smoke bombs and let them during the Lok Sbaha proceedings. Two others, Neelam Devi and Amol Shinde, who have been unable to get a pass, held a protest outside the parliament building, shouting slogans and waving smoke canisters, before they were caught.

Lalit Jha, who also did not get a visitors’ pass, recorded it on his cellphone and uploaded it on social media. He also passed on a copy to a Kolkata-based associate who runs a non-profit, investigators said.

The motive of the unprecedented “smoke protest”, investigators said, was to highlight the growing unemployment, plight of farmers, and the situation in Manipur. The group wanted a discussion on these matters in parliament and thought it would be a flashy way to draw attention. The group were part of a Facebook page called “Fans of Bhagat Singh”.

Investigators also said off the record that there appeared to be no organised terror group behind the plot.

In the court, though, the Delhi Police earlier said the matter needs further investigation while seeking two week’s custody of the four people arrested. The accused have been charged under the anti-terror law UAPA and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The police contended that the whole operation resembled a terror attack and questioned the motive.

“Was the purpose of the incident only to express one’s point or to carry out some major incident? It has to be investigated whether any terrorist organisation is involved in this entire issue,” they told the court.

The court has allowed them a week’s time.

Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has asked for a report after an open letter – purportedly by a woman judge in Uttar Pradesh alleging sexual harassment by a senior and requesting permission to kill herself – went viral on social media.

“Kindly permit me to end my life in a dignified way. Let my life be – DISMISSED,” the woman judge from Banda wrote in the letter addressed to the Chief Justice, alleging sex harassment by a district judge and his associates during a stint in Barabanki.

“I have been sexually harassed to the very limit. I have been treated like utter garbage. I feel like an unwanted insect,” she said in the widely-circulated letter.

On the instructions of Chief Justice Chandrachud, the Supreme Court Secretary General Atul M Kurhekar wrote to the registrar general of the Allahabad High Court asking for a report by this morning on the status of all the complaints by the woman judge.

The Secretary General was informed on the phone last night that the acting Chief Justice of the High Court had also taken note of the open letter.

The woman judge said in her letter that a probe was ordered into her allegations after she filed a complaint with the Internal Complaints Committee of the High Court in July 2023, but the inquiry is “a farce and a sham”.

“The witnesses in the enquiry are immediate Subordinates of the District Judge. How the Committee expects the Witnesses to depose against their Boss is beyond my understanding,” she wrote.

She said that she had requested the transfer of the judge pending the inquiry to ensure fair investigation, but her petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court in “just eight seconds.”

“All I requested was that the District Judge be transferred during the pendency of the inquiry. The bare minimum prayer was not heeded to,” the letter said.

“I have no will to live anymore. I have been rendered to a Walking Corpse in the last year and a half. There is no purpose in carrying this soulless and lifeless body around anymore. There is no purpose left in my life,” the two-page letter said.