The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seems to be now basking in a big victory since Delhi high court today restored membership of its 20 disqualified MLAs and referred the case back to the Election Commission (EC).
The HC claims that the disqualification of AAP MLAs was bad in law and they have remanded their plea back to the EC which will hear it afresh. The court further said there was a violation of natural justice and no oral hearing was given to the AAP MLAs before disqualifying them as legislators.
On January 19, the EC recommended the AAP MLAs be disqualified for holding offices of profit. Two days later, President Ram Nath Kovind approved the disqualification. The EC was referring to the fact the MLAs had been appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi government in March 2015.
“The truth has triumphed. The people whom Delhi had voted as their representatives were wrongly disqualified,” tweeted party chief Arvind Kejriwal, after the Delhi HC verdict.
सत्य की जीत हुई। दिल्ली के लोगों द्वारा चुने हुए प्रतिनिधियों को ग़लत तरीक़े से बर्खास्त किया गया था। दिल्ली हाई कोर्ट ने दिल्ली के लोगों को न्याय दिया। दिल्ली के लोगों की बड़ी जीत। दिल्ली के लोगों को बधाई। https://t.co/eDayHziHSn
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 23, 2018
The MLAs then approached the Delhi high court challenging their disqualification. The MLAs who had been axed were Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, Sanjeev Jha, Rajesh Gupta, Kailash Gehlot, Vijendra Garg, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Madan Lal Khufiya, Shiv Charan Goyal, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, Anil Kumar, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh Dala, Manoj Kumar and Nitin Tyagi.
A Delhi high court bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar wrapped up hearings in the case on February 28, and reserved its judgment after the legislators, the EC and other parties had concluded their arguments.
The MLAs had told the court that the EC’s order disqualifying them was passed in “complete violation of natural justice” as they were not given an opportunity to explain their stand before the poll panel.
In response to a query from the bench during the hearings, the legislators had agreed to have the case sent back to the poll panel so that the MLAs could be granted an oral hearing.
Backing its recommendation to the President for AAP MLAs’ disqualification, the poll panel had submitted that the legislators cannot claim that they were not holding office-of-profit. It had also claimed that these MLAs’ pleas were not maintainable and were liable to be dismissed.