New Delhi, January 23: The Delhi High Court will hear the Aam Aadmi Party’s plea seeking to quash of the disqualification of 20 party MLAs by President of India on the recommendation of the Election Commission of India on Wednesday. The MLAs have been disqualified as legislators for holding the office of profit
On Monday, the disqualified MLAs withdrew their petitions in the high court challenging the Election Commission’s (EC) recommendation which has received Presidential assent.
The legislators, whose appointment as parliamentary secretaries was questioned, had told the high court that they would move fresh petitions against their disqualification from the Delhi Assembly, as their earlier pleas became infructuous after President Ram Nath Kovind put a stamp of approval on the EC’s recommendation.
Justice Rekha Palli allowed the MLAs to withdraw their applications terming it “dismissed as withdrawn”, after it was informed by the EC that it had already sent its opinion to the President on January 19, before the MLAs had moved the court.
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 advocate Prashant Patel against 21 MLAs who were appointed as parliamentary secretaries by the AAP government in Delhi. The proceedings against Jarnail Singh were dropped after he resigned as the Rajouri Garden MLA to contest the Punjab Assembly polls.
The 20 MLAs include Adarsh Shastri (Dwarka), Alka Lamba (Chandni Chowk), Anil Bajpai (Gandhi Nagar), Avtar Singh (Kalkaji), Kailash Gahlot (Najafgarh) — who is also a minister — Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Manoj Kumar (Kondli), Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), Nitin Tyagi (Laxmi Nagar), Praveen Kumar (Jangpura).
The others are Rajesh Gupta (Wazirpur), Rajesh Rishi Janakpuri), Sanjeev Jha (Burari), Sarita Singh (Rohtas Nagar), Som Dutt (Sadar Bazar), Sharad Kumar (Narela), Shiv Charan Goel (Moti Nagar), Sukhbir Singh (Mundka), Vijendar Garg (Rajinder Nagar) and Jarnail Singh (Tilak Nagar).
With inputs from PTI