The disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs by the poll panel for holding ‘office-of-profit’ was today set aside by the Delhi High Court, which termed the recommendation as “vitiated” and “bad in law” and directed the Election Commission (EC) to hear the issue afresh.
Directing the Election Commission (EC) to hear the issue afresh, a bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar quashed the Centre’s notification of the EC’s opinion to disqualify the MLAs and remanded the issue back to the poll panel rejecting its contention that having given its opinion it had become “functus officio and hence remand is not possible”. Functus officio means an officer or agency whose mandate has expired.
The bench said “this argument of the EC is untenable. Once the opinion and notification are set aside, proceedings before the EC would continue from the stage the error and lapse had occurred. “If the contention of the EC is to be accepted, it would result in an incongruous situation, as the reference remains unanswered and has to be decided.” It, however, upheld the validity of the reference made by the President to the EC on a complaint received by it from advocate Prashant Patel challenging the AAP government’s March 2015 order appointing the MLAs as parliamentary secretaries.