EC clears Manish Sisodia in office of profit' case

The EC is already heari-ng two separate cases related to the office of profit concerning AAP legislators.

Update: 2017-04-30 20:19 GMT
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. (Photo: Asian Age)

New Delhi: The EC has cleared deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia’s in an office of profit case. In a recommendation to President Pranab Mukherjee recently, the EC said that Mr Sisodia can’t be disqualified as a legislator for being CM Arvind Kejriwal’s deputy.

The commission found no merit in a petition seeking his disqualification. It said several states have posts of deputy chief minister and it can’t be considered as an office of profit.

“He cannot be disqualified on this ground. The recommendation has been sent to the President,” an EC functionary said. To a question, the official also pointed out that the Pre-sident has “no discretion” on the issue and is “bound” by the recommendation of the election panel.

Last year, BJP leader Vivek Garg had approa-ched Mr Mukherjee with a petition seeking disqualification of Mr Sisodia. Acco-rding to Mr Garg, there was no provision for the post of deputy chief minister in the NCT of Delhi Act.

His petition was forwarded by the President’s office for EC’s opinion. The EC noted that the country has even had a deputy prime minister at one point, besides rejecting the office of profit allegation.

The EC is already heari-ng two separate cases related to the office of profit concerning AAP legislators. While one case pertains to illegal appointment of 21 AAP MLAs, the second is related to the demand for disqualification of 27 legislators for holding “office of profit”.

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