The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea by rebel AAP MLAs Colonel Devinder Kumar Sehrawat and Anil Bajpai, seeking recusal of the Delhi Assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel from hearing the anti-defection petition, filed by the Aam Aadmi Party, for joining the BJP days before the Lok Sabha election results.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru said the petition is “bereft of any merits” and hence is liable to be dismissed. He also rejected the claim of the MLAs that their applications for recusal of the Speaker moved in the Delhi Assembly should be decided prior to the proceedings of the anti-defection plea.

The petition alleged that the anti-defection pleas will not be “impartially adjudicated” as the authority, which is the Speaker, is acting as an active member of AAP, which had initiated the anti-defection proceedings.

While Bajpai’s plea was filed on Saturday, Sehrawat’s petition was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice D Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar. Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Chetan Sharma, said Goel had been politically active in the Aam Aadmi Party and should recuse from the matter. He told the court that the Speaker has been seen in the party’s campaign and had also joined protest by the AAP.

He urged the court that the applications of the rebel MLAs seeking recusal of the Speaker be decided first.

However, the court rejected his claim and stated, “There is no requirement for Speaker to decide the issue piecemeal. This court finds no infirmity in the procedure adopted by the Speaker and calling upon the petitioners to comprehensively respond to the complaint.”

While, dismissing the pleas, the court granted two days to the MLAs to file their replies on the anti-defection plea seeking their disqualification for joining BJP.

The court also said that the Speaker would address all contentions raised by the petitioners and they will be at liberty to appeal in case any adverse order is passed against the petitioners.

AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj on June 10 filed the petition seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law for allegedly joining the BJP.

The Speaker had on June 17 issued notice to the two MLAs asking them to file their response by Monday, July 8.

“It’s a clear law that if any MLA joins another political party, he/she shall lose membership of the Assembly. These two MLAs have joined the BJP, but now they are scared of loosing their MLA seat. How can they now deny that they did not join BJP ?” said AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj.

“They have been running to Supreme Court and high court on frivolous technical points. They are being snubbed by courts and sent back to appear before the Speaker. It’s only Speaker who decides about MLAs when they defect to another political party,” he said.

First Published: Jul 09, 2019 04:20 IST