Relief For Odisha MLA Mohd Moquim As HC Rejects PIL Against His Membership

Cuttack: In a temporary relief for suspended Congress leader and Barabati-Cuttack MLA Mohammed Moquim, the Orissa High Court on Friday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking cancellation of his membership of the state Assembly.

A division bench of Chief Justice Subhasis Talapatra and Justice Savitri Ratho disposed of the PIL filed by R R Sahu  seeking the court’s directive to disqualify Moquim as MLA following his conviction in a rural housing loan scam.

Noting that PIL cannot be used as a weapon, the HC held that there is a special division bench to hear matters relating to MLAs and MPs and the petitioner can move the same bench.

The PIL also sought the court’s intervention for expeditious disposal of the criminal appeal in which the conviction of Moquim in the loan scam which was stayed in an interim order on October 19, 2022. It was stated that the criminal appeal has since been pending without further hearing for over nine months now.

The petition also urged the court to declare that criminal appeals arising out of convictions of MLAs and MPs being a continuation of a trial be disposed of within a period of six months.

The Special Vigilance Court, Bhubaneswar had sentenced Moquim to three years imprisonment after convicting him along with former IAS officer and MD of Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) Vinod Kumar and two others in connection with the loan scam on September 29 last year.

Moquim had filed the criminal appeal challenging the propriety of the trial court’s order on the ground that it was incurably defective and suffered from gross infirmities on October 1, 2022.