New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) will resume hearing in the cases of disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs from next month for allegedly holding office-of-profit.
The poll panel has directed the 20 lawmakers to appear in person or through their legal representatives at 3.00 pm on May 17 for “oral hearing.”
The EC’s decision came days after the Delhi high court set aside an order disqualifying them. The court had also termed the recommendation as “vitiated” and “bad in law.” It directed the EC to hear the issue afresh. A senior EC official said that the oral hearing will be on merit of the case.
The court had said that once the EC opinion and the subsequent notifications are set aside, proceedings before the poll panel would continue from the stage the error and lapse had occurred. The legislators, who were appointed parliamentary secretaries, had challenged their disqualification for holding office-of-profit.
The MLAs were accused of holding offices-of-profit as they were appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi government in March 2015. This was soon after they were elected to the Delhi Assembly.
In September 2016, the Delhi high court had ruled against their appointment as parliamentary secretaries after hearing their pleas on a daily basis.
The EC had, on January 19, recommended the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs — Alka Lamba, Sanjeev Jha, Adarsh Shastri, Vijendra Garg, Rajesh Gupta, Kailash Gahlot, Praveen Kumar, Madan Lal, Sharad Kumar, Sarita Singh, Shiv Charan Goyal, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, Som Dutt, Anil Kumar, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh Dala, Nitin Tyagi, Manoj Kumar, and Jarnail Singh.
President Ram Nath Kovind had accepted the EC’s opinion the very next day.
