PIL seeks disqualification of 4 BJP MLAs on Delhi pattern : The Tribune India

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PIL seeks disqualification of 4 BJP MLAs on Delhi pattern

CHANDIGARH: A day after President Ram Nath Kovind approved the Election Commission’s recommendation to disqualify 20 AAP MLAs from the Delhi Assembly, a petition was filed today “in larger public interests” in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for a similar action against four Haryana MLAs.



Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 22

A day after President Ram Nath Kovind approved the Election Commission’s recommendation to disqualify 20 AAP MLAs from the Delhi Assembly, a petition was filed today “in larger public interests” in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for a similar action against four Haryana MLAs.

In the petition, advocate Jagmohan Singh Bhatti said that the question involving great public importance was whether the four Chief Parliamentary Secretaries of the Haryana government, too, invited disqualification.

He said that the President’s order applicable to the AAP MLAs was “supreme”. It deserved to be made applicable to the case of the Haryana MLAs by ordering their disqualification in the totality of the facts and circumstances.

The High Court was told that the Haryana government headed by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had appointed Seema Trikha, Shyam Singh Rana, Dr Kamal Gupta and Bakhshish Singh Virk as Chief Parliamentary Secretaries. The court had quashed their appointments in July last year. Special Leave petitions were not preferred by the state or the MLAs against the orders. As such the MLAs held offices of profit and invited disqualification from the Haryana Legislative Assembly.

Bhatti, in the petition on which the appointments were quashed, had argued that there was no provision for the post of CPS under the Constitution, and their appointment by the state was a burden on the exchequer.

Bhatti had also alleged that the CPSes’, treated as de facto ministers, were enjoying financial benefits, including salary, travelling expenses, staff, medical and telephone bills along with government accommodation. He had sought directions to quash the appointments claiming that it was waste of taxpayers’ money, besides being unconstitutional.

The Haryana government during the course of hearing had claimed that they were not getting the salary and allowances given to ministers.

Meanwhile, Naveen Jaihind, state convenor of AAP, today demanded their disqualification. Leader of the Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala demanded recovery of pecuniary benefits availed by them while in office.

However, Rajiv Jain, media in charge of the BJP in the state, said that there was no parity between the CPSes appointed in Delhi and Haryana.

"The AAP government appointed CPSes first and later passed a legislation to keep their posts out of the purview of office of profit. The post of CPS was taken out of the purview of office of profit in Haryana as early as 2006," Jain said.

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