Mahua Moitra
– Photo: PTI
Expansion
The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra’s plea to restrain the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from leaking to the media any confidential or unverified information in connection with the investigation against her under the Foreign Exchange Management Act. There was a demand to stop it. Justice Subramaniam Prasad said in the judgment that the ED has clarified that it did not issue any press note. At the same time, whatever news has been published in the newspapers is based on the sources. In such a situation, an order cannot be passed to stop ED.
Moitra had also sought to restrain the 19 media houses from publishing and broadcasting any unverified, unconfirmed, false, defamatory material in connection with the investigation pending against them. Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha in December last year after she was found guilty by the ethics panel in the ‘cash-for-query’ case. ED had issued summons to Moitra under FEMA on February 14 and 20.
Senior advocate Rebecca John, appearing for Moitra, had said that leaking of sensitive information related to the pending investigation to the media before she was informed about it is detrimental to her rights protected under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The ED, on the other hand, denied the allegation and said that it has not given any press release or leaked any information to the media regarding the investigation.
The plea seeks direction to the media houses that all news reporting and publications against Moitra be in line with the official press release issued by the ED in connection with the FEMA investigation. Further, Moitra had prayed that during the pendency of the petition, the ED and media houses should be restrained from leaking, publishing or broadcasting any information related to the ongoing FEMA investigation.