Delhi High Court trashes Election Commission bid to sack AAP MLAs

The Delhi High Court set aside on Friday the Election Commission’s recommendation that had allowed the BJP-led Central government to disqualify 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs on charges of holding offices of profit as parliamentary secretaries.

The disqualification was vitiated, bad in law and violated the principles of natural justice because no oral hearing had been given to the accused legislators, said a bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar.

The court also asked India’s top poll watchdog to hear the pleas of the MLAs afresh — each case has to be decided on merit. The move comes as a major relief to Delhi’s ruling party that recently faced much flak for an unprecedented confrontation it had with bureaucrats.

AAP MLAs had said that they had not been allowed to explain their side of the story. Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat refused to comment, saying, “We usually don’t comment on court orders.”

In January, the Union Law Ministry issued a notification that said President Ram Nath Kovind has had accepted the Election Commission’s recommendations to disqualify the MLAs. There was no immediate threat to the Kejriwal government as it had the numbers in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, but the charge demoralised the party still smarting from a string of electoral losses.

Had the January 21 disqualification not overturned, by-elections to these seats would have been conducted within six months. These MLAs had been appointed as “parliamentary secretaries” to “assist” ministers two years ago, while rules say lawmakers cannot hold any government post that comes with perks or powers.