The Supreme Court has stayed a Delhi High Court order directing the Lokpal of India to grant sanction within two months to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for filing a charge sheet against Trinamool Congress parliamentarian Mahua Moitra.
The order was passed on a petition filed by the Lokpal of India challenging two orders of the HC — one on December 19, 2025, directing it to grant sanction within a month, followed by another order on January 23 extending this time by two months.
The Supreme Court bench noted that the interpretation of the Lokpal Act has come up before the court for the first time and issued notice to Moitra along with CBI and the complainant — BJP MP Nishikant Dubey.
The Lokpal had granted CBI the sanction to file a charge sheet within four weeks and mandated that a copy be submitted to the Lokpal, but the High Court set aside the order, observing that the procedure adopted by it amounted to a form of statutory ingenuity or re-engineering of the 2013 Act.
