Disqualification of AAP MLAs: EC’s decision may trigger another round of tussle

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 19

There seems to be no end to the collisions between the BJP-led Centre and the AAP in sight. In the latest is the Election Commission’s (EC) recommendations on disqualifying 20 AAP MLAs in the office-of-profit case that is bound to reignite the tussle between the two.

It is obviously advantage for the opposition parties — the BJP and the Congress — as the national Capital now stares at another round of by-elections in the respective 20 assembly seats as the AAP failed to secure a stay on the disqualification from the Delhi High Court.

Within hours the news of EC’s decision was out, the AAP crying foul dubbed the EC’s move as a “conspiracy” by the BJP. Greater Kailash AAP legislator Saurabh Bhardwaj questioned the EC’s decision terming it “unfair” and claiming that the ruling party MLAs were not heard. It smacks of “conspiracy” resulting from political vendetta, he added.

Within a month of its spectacular win in Delhi Assembly elections in 2015 the AAP government issued an order appointing 21 party MLAs (former Rajouri Garden MLA Jarnail Singh resigned last year paving way for by-election) as Parliamentary Secretaries to ministers.

The appointments were challenged in June then by lawyer Prashant Patel who petitioned President Pranab Mukherjee seeking disqualification of the MLAs on the ground that they held office of profit. Their appointments are “illegal and unconstitutional”, Patel had maintained, quoting the Article 191 of the Constitution and Section 15 of the GNCTD Act, 1991.

Soon the assembly, wherein the Kejriwal-led AAP enjoying a brute majority, passed the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Bill, 2015, to be applicable with “retrospective” effect. But the President withheld assent to the bill and referred the matter to the EC.

Following notices from the EC, the 21 AAP MLAs filed their replies and sought a personal hearing in the case, but the request was rejected.

In their submission, the AAP MLAs said they didn’t receive any pecuniary gain and government facilities in their capacity as Parliamentary Secretaries — contrary to what petitioner Patel had claimed.

Importantly, office of profit remains undefined by the Constitution leaving the courts to decide its validity. Legal precedents suggest that allowances for discharging official duties would not fall under office of profit bracket as in Umrao Singh vs. Darbara Singh and Others in Panchayat Samiti case heard by the Supreme Court.

Among the 20 AAP MLAs whose future hangs on the President’s decision is also an AAP minister, Kailash Gehlot. A look at the past regimes in Delhi shows parliamentary secretaries were appointed during former CM Lt Sahib Singh Verma (BJP MLA Nand Kishore Garg) and Congress’ Sheila Dixshit (M Sharma, Prahlad Sawhney, Ajay Maken).