Mahua Moitra, a TMC member, and Nishikant Dubey, a BJP member, were embroiled in a legal battle that reached the Delhi High Court on Friday. Dubey’s attorneys claimed that Moitra had received gifts for her questions in Parliament.
“Yesterday in the press, a businessman has circulated an affidavit that he had given expensive gifts to the petitioner,” Advocate Abhimanyu Bhanfari, appearing for Nishikant Dubey, submitted before Justice Sachin Datta.
Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnaryan while pushing for an ad interim injunction told the court,”She’s a public figure with standing in the society…unfortunately she was a friend with Dehadari.”
Senior Advocate Sankarnaryan, who was representing Mahua Moitra, was submitting his briefs when Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who was also seeking an injunction, objected to him taking the case. When Dehadrai personally showed up for the hearing, he stated that Sankaranarayanan had called him the previous evening and requested that he return the dog in exchange for the CBI complaint. Sankarnaryan withdrew from the case after these submissions, so the case was postponed until October 31.
The Delhi High Court was to hear TMC MP Mahua Moitra’s application on Friday, asking for an order to stop BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, and a number of media outlets and social media platforms from publishing, disseminating, or posting any false or defamatory material about her online. The defendants in Moitra’s lawsuit received notices from the High Court on the previous date. Following BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s complaint to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that Moitra had allegedly accepted bribes from a business house in exchange for asking questions in Parliament, Moitra finds herself at the center of a political storm.