The Delhi High Court on Tuesday, 30 January, asked the Election Commission (EC) to state the facts behind its decision to disqualify the 20 AAP MLAs for holding office of profit by filing an affidavit.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar asked the poll panel to file the affidavit after the EC said it wanted to respond to some of the allegations made in the MLAs' pleas challenging their disqualification from the Delhi Assembly.
The Commission also told the court that it would rely upon the opinion it gave to the President to disqualify the 20 AAP MLAs who were appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries.
When the matter was taken up for hearing initially, the court asked the petitioners to go through the poll panel's synopsis of the case and then decide if affidavits are needed.
Subsequently, the matter was taken up again after everyone perused the EC's synopsis.
In the second round of proceedings, the bench said that the 250-page long synopsis, containing various documents, was very big and asked the EC to file a shorter one on affidavit.
"A synopsis of 250 pages. It cannot be that big," the court observed.
After the brief proceedings, the court listed the matter for further hearing on 7 February, by when the MLAs have to file their responses to the EC affidavit.
The Delhi High Court on Monday, 29 January, had transferred to a division bench the pleas of AAP MLAs seeking quashing of their disqualification from the Delhi Assembly for holding an office of profit.
The court also extended its 24 January order restraining the Election Commission (EC) from issuing any notification announcing by-elections to fill the vacancies of the 20 Assembly seats whose legislators have been disqualified.
The petitions were filed by eight AAP MLAs challenging the Centre's notification, disqualifying 20 of them for holding office of profit.
The High Court had on 24 January refused to stay the Centre's notification disqualifying the MLAs, but restrained the EC from taking any "precipitate measures" like announcing dates for by-polls.
The fresh direction came after advocate Prashant Patel, on whose plea the EC had recommended the disqualification of 20 MLAs, moved an application seeking transfer of the matter to a division bench.
Senior counsel Meet Malhotra and advocate Mudit Gupta, appearing for Patel, cited a Supreme Court judgement and said that the apex court, while deliberating on the aspect of disqualification of MLAs, had categorically held that such matters ought to be heard by a bench of at least two judges.
The counsel also submitted that the pleas of eight of the 20 disqualified AAP MLAs have been erroneously placed for consideration before a single judge. Their contention was supported by poll panel's counsel Amit Sharma, who also said that it should be sent to a division bench as the pleas are not maintainable here.
Senior advocate KV Vishwanathan, appearing for some other AAP MLAs, vehemently opposed the contention and said their plea was very much maintainable before the single judge bench itself and can be heard.
The court, however, while going through the SC findings, observed that the reasoning was clear with regard to hearing of the matter by a division bench.
In view of the Supreme Court directions issued... no such arrangement is made in this matter. There is a direction of the Supreme Court. Therefore, the present petition should also be placed before the division benchThe High Court bench said
It had earlier summoned the entire records pertaining to the proceedings leading to the recommendation of the EC for the disqualification of the 20 legislators, which received the President's assent on January 20.
The 20 disqualified 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).
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