Office of profit: setback for AAP MLAs as EC to hear case

Poll panel to hear case against 20 AAP MLAs appointed as parliamentary secys

The Election Commission of India has decided that it would continue hearing a case of office of profit against 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, who were among the 21 MLAs appointed as parliamentary secretaries to Ministers in 2015.

The case against one of the 21 MLAs — Jarnail Singh of Rajouri Garden — would no longer carry on as he had resigned from the Delhi Assembly in January this year in order to contest the Punjab elections.

Opinion to President

In their opinion submitted to President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday, Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Nasim Zaidi and Election Commissioner A.K. Joti wrote that the ECI found the AAP MLAs “did hold de facto the office of parliamentary secretaries” from March 13, 2015 to September 8, 2016.

The ECI had been hearing the office of profit case against 21 AAP MLAs when the AAP cited a Delhi High Court order of September 8, 2016 scrapping the appointment of the parliamentary secretaries in its defence.

The AAP had contended that since the High Court had declared the appointment null and void, there was no question of hearing a petition about an office that never existed. In the ECI’s opinion to the President, this interpretation of the HC order “wasn’t legally tenable”.

“Hence, without prejudice to the merits of the case, the reference relating to the question of alleged disqualification of the respondents under Section 15(4) of the GNCT of Delhi Act, 1991 for holding the said office survives and is maintainable…,” said the ECI. The next date of hearing would be decided and conveyed to those involved, it added.

‘Null and void’

Reacting to the development, AAP spokesperson and Greater Kailash MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said that the party had options open to it to challenge the decision of the ECI. He reiterated the AAP’s stance that the Delhi High Court order had declared the appointment of parliamentary secretaries “null and void”, which he said meant that if the office never existed, then there was no question of hearing a petition against it.