Division bench to hear the case.
The Delhi High Court today transferred to a division bench the pleas of AAP MLAs, seeking quashing of their disqualification from the Delhi Assembly for holding office of profit.
Single judge bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru fixed the matter before the Acting Chief Justice tomorrow, who may either set up or refer it to an existing division bench. The court also extended its January 24 order restraining the Election Commission (EC) from issuing any notification announcing bye-elections to fill vacancies of the 20 Assembly seats whose MLAs have been disqualified.
The court's direction came after advocate Prashant Patel, on whose plea the poll panel had recommended disqualification of the AAP legislators to which the President gave his nod, moved an application seeking transfer of the matter to a division bench. The petitions were filed by eight AAP MLAs challenging the Centre's notification, disqualifying 20 of them for holding an office of profit.
The high court had on January 24 refused to stay the Centre's notification disqualifying the MLAs for holding office of profit but restrained the EC from taking any "precipitate measures" like announcing dates for by-polls.
The high court had earlier summoned the entire records pertaining to the proceedings leading to the recommendation of the EC for 20 MLAs' disqualification which received the presidential assent on January 20.
On January 19, the poll panel had made the recommendation for the disqualification of the 20 legislators, which was given assent by the President.
The EC had made the recommendation while deciding a plea by advocate Prashant Patel, seeking disqualification of 21 AAP MLAs for holding the office of parliamentary secretaries, which he had said amounted to office of profit. Proceedings against Jarnail Singh were dropped after he resigned as the Rajouri Garden MLA to contest the Punjab Assembly polls.
On January 20, the Ministry of Law and Justice issued a notification that the President had held that the 20 MLAs stand disqualified under Section 15(1)(a) of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act.
The MLAs, whose appointment to the post of Parliamentary Secretaries between March 13, 2015 and September 8, 2016 was held as office of profit, contended that the entire episode leading to their disqualification was a clear manifestation of the process in which they were denied the principle of natural justice of being heard.
The 20 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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