CBI queries Dubai businessman Hiranandani for cash-for-query

NEW DELHI: According to reports, the CBI has questioned businessman Darshan Hiranandani, who is located in Dubai, on charges of corruption related to queries raised in the House last year that resulted in TMC lawmaker Mahua Moitra’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha. Although Moitra is said to have responded to the agency as well, the CBI declined to verify this.

According to reports, in addition to Hiranandani, a dozen other people have allegedly been questioned thus far in the investigation.According to the source, Hiranandani was handed a questionnaire consisting of more than fifty questions by the agency. The CBI could not clarify whether he was questioned online or in Delhi or Dubai.

It has been alleged that Moitra targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and entrepreneur Gautam Adani by posing questions in the Lok Sabha in return for gifts and money from Hiranandani. In October of last year, Hiranandani filed a notarized and “sworn” document with the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee, claiming that Moitra had given him her “Parliament login and password” so that he “could post questions directly on her behalf when required.” In response, Moitra said that she had only gotten “one scarf, one lipstick, and one eye shadow” as presents from Hiranandani, the CEO of the Hiranandani Group.

In order to get the Ethics Committee report that suggested Moitra be removed from Parliament, the CBI had already contacted the Lok Sabha secretariat. Based on a complaint that Lokpal submitted, the CBI is looking into the situation.