Office-of-profit case: Delhi HC seeks poll panel response

New Delhi:  The Delhi high court  on Wednesday sought respo-nse of the Election Commission (EC), on a plea by an Aam Aadmi Party MLA challenging the poll panel’s decision not to allow disqualified AAP MLAs, to summon witnesses in the office-of-profit matter.

Justice Siddharth Mrid-ul also sought reply of co-mplainant Prashant Patel on whose plea the poll panel had earlier recommended disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs.

The court was hearing a petition by AAP MLA Kailash Gahlot challenging the EC’s September 25 decision rejecting the legislator’s  plea to summon government officials as witnesses in the office-of-profit matter pending bef-ore the poll panel. The court has now listed the matter for hearing on  November 1.    

The poll panel had on January 19 this year recommended the disqualification of the 20 Aam Admi Party MLAs, accus-ed of holding offices-of-pr-ofit as they were appointed Parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi government in Ma-rch 2015. This was done soon after they were elected to the Delhi Assembly. The high court had on August 20 allowed the MLAs to move EC for permission to summon witnesses and had asked the poll panel to decide it as per the law.    

In September 2016, the high court had ruled against their appointment as parliamentary secretaries. The Election Com-mission had on January 19 this year recommended the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs. The high cou-rt had on January 24 refu-sed to stay the Centre’s notification disqualifying them, but restrained the poll panel from taking any “precipitate measures” such as announcing dates for bypolls to fill the vacancies.    

Apart from Mr Gahlot, the other MLAs including Alka Lamba, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh  Dala, Nitin Tyagi, Manoj Kumar , Jarnail Singh, Adarsh Shastri,  Sanjeev Jha, Rajesh Gupta, Vijendra Garg, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Madan Lal, Shiv Charan Goyal, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, were disqualified.