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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Purported photos of Lalit Jha, alleged mastermind of the parliament security breach, with a Trinamool Congress leader have become the latest flashpoint between the party and the BJP. While the BJP has accused the Trinamool and the whole of INDIA bloc of being complicit in the breach, the Trinamool has pointed out that it is BJP’s Mysuru MP wo has been accused of being instrumental in issuing a pass to the two intruders.

Mysuru MP Prathap Simha has been in the eye of the storm since yesterday after it was found that his office has put in the request for visitor’s passes for Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan, who had smuggled in smoke bombs to parliament’s visitors’ gallery.

They had activated the bombs in the middle of the proceedings, one of them jumping off the gallery onto the Lok Sabha floor – before being overpowered by the MPs and the securitymen.

The alleged mastermind was Lalit Jha, a teacher from Bengal, who is now on the run.  

Today, Bengal BJP chief Dr Sukanto Majumdar posted a photo of Lalit Jha on X, formerly Twitter, with senior Trinamool leader Tapas Roy. The caption read, “Lalit Jha, the mastermind of the attack on our Temple of Democracy, had been in close association with TMC’s Tapas Roy for a long time… Isn’t this proof enough for investigation into the connivance of the leader?”

Lalit Jha, the mastermind of the attack on our Temple of Democracy, had been in close association with TMC’s Tapas Roy for a long time… Isn’t this proof enough for investigation into the connivance of the leader? @AITCofficial @TapasRoyAITC @abhishekaitc #shameontmc pic.twitter.com/1PIVnnbGx9

— Dr. Sukanta Majumdar (@DrSukantaBJP) December 14, 2023

It was picked by the BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya, who alleged that “So far, people involved in the entire episode have been found to have links with the Congress, CPI(Maoist) and now the TMC”.

TMC connection of Lalit Jha, wanted in the Parliament security breach, now emerges. Several pictures of his with TMC leaders have gone viral.

So far, people involved in the entire episode have been found to have links with the Congress, CPI(Maoist) and now the TMC.

Isn’t it…

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 14, 2023

The Trinamool hit back, alleging that the BJP’s  “internal failings led to this unprecedented breach of Parliament’s security”.

Let’s scrutinize the facts: the culprits were granted access by none other than @BJP4Karnataka MP @mepratap. Only 176 Delhi Police personnel were on duty instead of the usual 300 to secure the Parliament.@BJP4India‘s internal failings led to this unprecedented breach of… https://t.co/prB0SIh3e7

— Kunal Ghosh (@KunalGhoshAgain) December 14, 2023

Yesterday, investigators said Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan had managed to secure visitors’ passes by request from Prathap Simha’s office.

Mr Simha – a 42-year-old former journalist — has denied any connection with the accused, apart from asking the Lok Sabha Secretariat — which is supposed to screen visitors — to issue passes.
The INDIA bloc parties have demanded that Mr Simha be questioned, declaring the security breach as a terrorist act.

At least one of the men who breached security today is linked to his constituency. Manoranjan D, 35, is a Bachelor of Engineering graduate from Mysore Vivekanand University in Bengaluru and his father stays in Mysore’s Vijaynagar.

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.