The Election Commission will grant an oral hearing to 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MlAs in the Office of Profit case on May 17. The commission, in a letter on Friday, invited the 20 legislators who were earlier disqualified in the office of profit case as well as petitioner Prashant Patel to appear before the Commission “either in person or through authorised legal representative” at 3 pm on this date.
The hearing would be conducted in presence of Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat and Election Commissioners Sunil Arora and Ashok lavasa.
The EC's decision came after the Delhi High Court on March 23 set aside the disqualification of the 20 AAP MlAs on the grounds that no oral hearing was given to the MlAs before disqualifying them as legislators of the Delhi Assembly and hence there was violation of natural justice.
Quashing the Central government's notification disqualifying the AAP MlAs, the High Court had directed the Election Commission to hear the matter afresh.
A Bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Chander Shekhar had observed that the Election Commission's recommendation against the legislators was “bad in law” and “vitiated”.
The AAP had alleged that the Election Commission did not give its plea a hearing since March last year. The EC had maintained that they were given two opportunities to file written submissions.
The MlAs were accused of holding offices of profit as they were appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi Government in March 2015.
This was soon after they were elected to the Delhi Assembly. In September 2016, the Delhi High Court had ruled against their appointment as parliamentary secretaries, after hearing their pleas on a daily basis.