The recommendation has been sent to the President for his nod and will lead to by-polls in Delhi.
New Delhi: In a major blow to the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi, the Election Commission (EC) on Friday recommended disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs for holding 'office of profit,' according to media reports.
The recommendation has been sent to the President Ram Nath Kovind for his nod.
The President is bound to go by the recommendation of the Commission. In cases where petitions are made seeking disqualification of lawmakers, the President sends a reference to the EC which decides on the case by sending back its opinion.
Following the shocking move, AAP approached the Delhi High Court against EC's recommendation to disqualify its MLAs but the court refused to grant interim relief to the party's legislators.
In the present case, the petition was made to disqualify 21 MLAs, but one had resigned a few months back.
The EC, however, said that the disqualification is sub-judice, and it will not comment on what recommendation has been given to the President.
A petition filed by lawyer Prashant Patel sought the disqualification of the MLAs on the grounds that they were holding an 'office of profit' as parliamentary secretaries.
In 2015, soon after AAP swept the Delhi elections, Kejriwal had appointed 21 legislators as parliamentary secretaries.
This disqualification will lead to by-polls in Delhi.
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The ruling AAP has a massive majority in the Delhi Assembly with 67 out of 70 seats.
This disqualification will not meddle with AAP's position in the assembly, but is definitely a serious setback for the party.
The MLAs' pleas that the case against them be dropped were rejected by the EC in June 2017.
Both Congress and BJP had been pushing the EC to order the disqualification.
Here's the list of disqualified 20 AAP MLAs: