The Lok Sabha Secretariat has told the Supreme Court that expelled Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s defence that she shared her “confidential” Lok Sabha login credentials with Dubai-based business tycoon Darshan Hiranandani to help her type her questions is “unfathomable”.
The Secretariat said Ms. Moitra’s login credentials, that is, user ID and password for the Lok Sabha Members’ Portal, were used 47 times from the IP address belonging to Mr. Hiranandani, including when she was not in Dubai.
“Sharing credentials to the login portal can be susceptible to potential national security hazards and can not only render the system of the Lok Sabha to cyber-attacks and potentially disable the system, but can also potentially cripple the functioning of the Parliament of India. These are valid concerns of national security as well as the dignity and independence of Parliamentary functioning,” the Lok Sabha Secretariat submitted in a 41-page affidavit.
The Secretariat was responding to a petition filed by Ms. Moitra, who has challenged her expulsion as an MP.
Ms. Moitra had argued that the sharing of log-in details did not mean giving control of the portal. Giving controlled access to log-in details cannot be termed as “hacking”. There was no violation of ethics involved as there was no quid pro quo. No MP herself operated the portal. Out of necessity, any MP shared log-in details with her secretaries, delegates or nominees. There had been no code of conduct or rules for authorised or controlled access to the portal.
“She was expelled without there being a set of rules for sharing the access code,” senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, appearing for Ms. Moitra, had submitted in the Supreme Court.
But the Lok Sabha Secretariat said an MP was given enough personnel to help her with her official responsibilities.
It referred to the Committee on Ethics’ observation that an act of sharing of login credentials of an exclusive portal to unauthorised personnel amounted to a violation of the punitive provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
“The ‘act of sharing’ of the confidential login credentials has categorically been admitted by the petitioner [Ms. Moitra] in her evidence to the Committee… Thus, the petitioner has admitted to committing the very serious act of providing unauthorised access to a portal, exclusively meant to be accessed by the Members of the Parliament,” the Lok Sabha Secretariat said.
The Secretariat said Ms. Moitra’s petition in the Supreme Court was not maintainable as the proceedings of the Parliament (and its constituents) cannot be called into question in a court of law. Article 122 of the Constitution provided that the validity of proceedings in Parliament should not be called in question on the ground of any alleged irregularity of procedure, it noted.
“The House of the People is the sole judge of the lawfulness of proceedings,” the affidavit said.
The right to be elected to the Parliament and the right to continue as its Member were not fundamental rights. A petition under Article 32 (violation of fundamental rights) of the Constitution was not maintainable in the top court. Internal proceedings conducted by the House and a Member’s expulsion were beyond the scope of judicial review, the affidavit argued.
