NEW DELHI: The Delhi BJP MLAs, on Tuesday, knocked the doors of the high court seeking that transport minister Kailash Gahlot be restrained from attending the ongoing Assembly proceedings, as he has been disqualified as an MLA for holding office of profit.
The BJP legislators also met lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal, requesting him to remove Mr Gahlot from the Cabinet. They said that to uphold the country’s Constitution, he should not be allowed to participate in the Assembly proceedings.
In the court, the plea challenging the continuance of Mr Gahlot as a minister was mentioned before a two-judge bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar, which listed it for hearing on Wednesday. The Budget Session of the Delhi Assembly started on March 16 and will continue till March 28.
On January 19, the Election Commission (EC) had recommended the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs for holding office of profit. The President had accepted the poll panel’s opinion the very next day. The MLAs have challenged their disqualification order in the high court, which is yet to pronounce the judgment.
Lawyers Balendu Shekhar and Neeraj Kumar mentioned the petition on behalf of the four BJP MLAs — Vijender Gupta, OP Sharma, Jagdish Pradhan, and Manjinder Singh Sirsa.
The MLAs, in their petition, have also questioned the reasoning of the Assembly Speaker in allowing Mr Gahlot to attend the House on the grounds that he has six months to get re-elected since his disqualification.
The plea seeks the court’s intervention, saying that the Speaker’s decision to permit Mr Gahlot to sit in the House is contrary to the Constitution and the 1991 NCT of Delhi Act. They have submitted that once an MLA has been disqualified by the EC, he or she cannot continue under any circumstance.
The MLAs had protested against Mr Gahlot’s presence in the House on the first day of the Budget Session.
