Delhi HC reserves judgment in AAP MLAs disqualification case

The Delhi High Court today reserved its judgment in the plea by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs seeking quashing of a notification issued by the President of India, that had disqualified 20 legislators on charges of holding an office of profit..Initially, the legislators had approached the High Court seeking a stay on the order of the Election Commission, which had found them guilty of holding offices of profit. However, the plea was dismissed as withdrawn after the President issued the impugned notification..The submissions by Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan, appearing for the disqualified legislators today, were threefold:.That the principles of natural justice were not followed during the proceedings conducted before the Election Commission.That one of the Election Commissioners, OP Rawat, had initially recused himself, but had later joined the proceedings in a way which is contrary to law.That the order was undersigned by Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, who had not heard the petitioners during the proceedings..Viswanathan vehemently argued that the legislators did not derive any pecuniary benefits by virtue of their being appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries..The Election Commission refuted the above arguments and stated that the principles of natural justice were diligently followed during the proceedings. It was stated that the order of the Commission did not suffer from any infirmity..The Division Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar, after hearing arguments for several days, reserved its judgment. The verdict is likely to be pronounced before March 22..The matter had emanated out of a petition filed by one Prashant Patel in 2015, whereby he had sought the disqualification of 21 AAP MLAs on grounds of holding office of profit as Parliamentary Secretaries to the Ministers of the Delhi government.