National News
Delhi HC transfers disqualified AAP MLAs’ plea to Division Bench
The Delhi High Court on Monday transferred to a Division Bench the pleas of the 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 on January 30, who may either set up or refer it to any existing Division Bench.
The court also extended its January 24 order restraining the Election Commission of India (ECI) from issuing any notification announcing bye-elections to fill the vacancies of the 20 Assembly seats whose legislators have been disqualified.
The direction came after advocate Prashant Patel, on whose plea the EC had recommended disqualification of the MLAs which received the presidential nod, moved an application seeking transfer of the matter to a Division Bench.
Senior counsel Meet Malhotra and advocate Mudit Gupta, appearing for Mr. Patel, cited a Supreme Court judgment and said 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 K.V. 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 in… 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 Bench,” the court said.
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 on January 24 refused to stay the Centre’s notification disqualifying the MLAs, but restrained the EC from taking any “precipitate measures” like announcing dates for bypolls.
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).
