The Delhi High Court on Thursday said allowing 20 AAP MLAs to summon witnesses in the disqualification proceedings before the poll panel could lead to prolonging the matter beyond their tenure, expiring in 2020.
The MLAs are seeking summoning of witnesses before the poll panel to show that they have not received any “actual” benefit from their appointment as Parliamentary Secretaries.
Justice Sunil Gaur said the idea was not to “stop” or “curtail” the rights of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, whose appointment as Parliamentary Secretaries led to the allegation against them, “but to ensure it [the proceedings] does not get prolonged”.
“This information you can receive under RTI. There is no need to summon witnesses. Move an application under RTI to ascertain whether actual benefit was derived,” the court said.
Senior advocate K.V. Vishwanathan, appearing for the MLAs, said the summoning and examining of the witnesses can be made time-bound to ensure the matter does not get prolonged.
The court was hearing a petition by Delhi Law Minister and AAP MLA Kailash Gahlot and others challenging the Election Commission’s (EC) September 25 decision rejecting the legislator’s plea to summon government officials as witnesses in the office-of-profit matter pending before the poll panel.
The court listed the AAP MLAs’ plea for orders on November 16.
EC had on January 19 this year recommended the disqualification of the 20 AAP MLAs as they were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries to Ministers in the Delhi government in March 2015.
On March 23, the High Court had set aside the disqualification by the poll panel terming the recommendation as “vitiated” and “bad in law”. It had directed the EC to hear the issue afresh.