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House panel may recommend expulsion of Babubhai Katara

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha committee on misconduct by MPs is expected to recommend expulsion of Babubhai Katara, against whom a criminal case of human trafficking was registered last year.

It is learnt from some of the members that the committee, at its sitting on September 8, was expected to “unanimously” recommend the expulsion as the facts had been established.

The BJP member on the committee, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, has also reportedly agreed that Mr. Katara, elected from Dahod (Gujarat), ought to be expelled.

Mr. Katara is also among the four BJP MPs who abstained during the trust vote in the Lok Sabha on July 22, while four others had voted in favour of the government motion. All the eight have since been expelled from the BJP.

Fake passports seized

Last year, Mr. Katara was arrested at the Delhi international airport while trying to board a plane along with a woman and a boy. The woman was using the passport of Mr. Katara’s wife and the boy, his son’s passport. Later the police recovered many fake passports and travel documents from Mr. Katara’s premises.

Cash-for-votes scam

Meanwhile, the Kishore Chandra Deo committee on the cash-for-votes scandal met here on Wednesday and decided to ask for a further extension till the last working day in September.

Mr. Deo told journalists that all seven members expressed their views on the basis of evidence and depositions.

At the next meeting, the members would discuss the views expressed by each of them and try to arrive at some common points. Before that, the transcript of what each member said on Wednesday would be circulated to all.

At the last meeting, some members suggested that a narco analysis test be done on Sanjeev Saxena. A note on the legal and technical shortfalls of such an exercise was reportedly prepared by the Lok Sabha secretariat and circulated to all members.

One member told The Hindu that the committee had ascertained that the currency notes displayed in the Lok Sabha on July 22 by three BJP MPs were indeed the same wads that were photographed by a television channel team on July 22.

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