Election Commission will hear pleas of 21 MLAs from July 14

The 21 AAP legislators who may be disqualified from the Delhi Assembly in the office of profit case will be given a personal hearing by the Election Commission from July 14. These 21 AAP MLAs had sought a personal hearing in their reply to a notice by the Election Commission last month. Lawyer Prashant Patel had petitioned the poll panel for their disqualification over their appointment as parliamentary secretaries by the Kejriwal government.

Maintaining that there was no “pecuniary benefit” associated with the post of parliamentary secretary, the MLAs, in their response to the poll panel, said that parliamentary secretary is a “post” without any remuneration or power. The AAP had appointed 21 parliamentary secretaries to assist the Delhi government ministers early last year. Thereafter, the Kejriwal government sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. In the bill, the AAP wanted “retrospective” exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions.

With President Pranab Mukherjee refusing to clear the bill, the 21 ruling party MLAs at present have no legal backing for holding the post of parliamentary secretaries. The Election Commission has taken cognisance of the President’s decision against signing the Delhi government’s bill to exclude the post of parliamentary secretary from the ambit of the office of profit provision. Questions have been raised over the appointment of 21 parliamentary secretaries by the Opposition too. Delhi L-G Najeeb Jung has said that the office of parliamentary secretary is defined as an “office of profit if one looks at the statutes of Delhi” and that as per the GNCTD Act, the city can have only one parliamentary secretary attached to the office of the chief minister.