New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday disqualified 20 Aam Adami Party (AAP) MLA’s of Delhi legislative assembly for holding ‘office for profit’.
Arvind Kejriwal [File Photo]
Recommendation for the same has been sent by the ECI to the Indian president for his assent, if the Indian president Ram Nath Kovind goes ahead with the recommendation then it may pave way for a mid term assembly elections in Delhi.
It is said that soon after AAP’s victory in the 2015 Assembly elections in Delhi. A petition filed by lawyer Prashant Patel sought the disqualification of the MLAs on the grounds that they were holding an ‘office of profit’ as parliamentary secretaries, reads a quote from a report published in an English vernacular.
Afterwards, the MLAs’ pleas that the case against them be dropped were rejected by the ECI in June 2017. In August 2017, the MLAs appealed to the Delhi high court asking it to not allow the ECI taking up the Delhi lawyer’s petition. They argued that their appointments to the post of parliamentary secretary were already quashed, in 2016, notes Times Of India (ToI).
In turn, the Delhi high court said it couldn’t accept the MLAs’ plea, because the ECI hadn’t at the time begun to hear the issue.