Disqualified MLAs withdraw HC plea

NEW DELHI: The 20 disqualified AAP MLAs on Monday withdrew their application from the Delhi high court challenging the Election Commission’s recommendation in the office-of-profit case, saying they would file a fresh plea after exa-mining the notification for their disqualification.

Justice Rekha Palli allowed the MLAs to withdraw their plea and termed it “dismissed as withdrawn”.

Advocate Amit Sharma, appearing for the EC, also said that in view of the government notification after the President’s ass-ent, the applications have become infructuous.

The legislators had filed the applications in the main pending petition in which they had challenged the EC’s stand to examine a complaint against them for holding office-of-profit.

When the court’s attenti-on was drawn to the main petition, the judge said, “In my opinion, the petition (main petition) also becomes infructuous.”

However, advocate Manish Vashisht, appearing for one of the AAP MLAs, said the main petition be kept pending as he wanted to examine the notification.

Taking note of the submission, the court fixed March 20 for hearing the main petition and said that in view of the change in circumstances, there was no need for the EC to file its response as directed earlier.

Taking the submissions on record, the court continued with its January 19 interim order giving no protection to the aggrieved legislators.

In its opinion sent to the President, the EC had said that by being parliamentary secretaries, they held office-of-profit and were liable to be disqualified as MLAs of the Delhi Assembly.

The petition before the EC was filed by lawyer Prashant Patel against 21 MLAs who were appointed as parliamentary secretaries by the AAP government. The proceedings ag-ainst Jarnail Singh were dropped after he resigned as the Rajouri Garden MLA to contest the Punjab Assembly polls.

The AAP government had appointed 21 legislators as parliamentary secretaries in March 2015. As protests over the appointments grew, the government sought to shield the law makers by excluding  the post of the parliamentary secretary from the ambit of office of profit laws. But former Presi-dent Pranab Mukherjee refused to approve it and referred a private petition in the matter to the Election Comm-ission.