The Delhi High Court will hear today pleas of 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators, seeking quashing of their disqualification from the Delhi Assembly for holding offices of profit.
On January 21, President Ram Nath Kovind had approved the disqualification of AAP MLAs, after the Election Commission had recommended the same on January 19.
On January 24, the Delhi High Court had refused to pass any interim order on staying the Centre’s notification disqualifying the AAP lawmakers in “Office of Profit” case.
The court had also asked the Election Commission not to make any announcement regarding bypolls on the 20 vacated seats until Monday, i.e. today.
The 20 MLAs include Adarsh Shastri (Dwarka), Alka Lamba (Chandni Chowk), Anil Bajpai (Gandhi Nagar), Avtar Singh (Kalkaji), Kailash Gahlot (Najafgarh) -- who is also a minister -- Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Manoj Kumar (Kondli), Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), Nitin Tyagi (Laxmi Nagar), Praveen Kumar (Jangpura).
The others are Rajesh Gupta (Wazirpur), Rajesh Rishi (Janakpuri), Sanjeev Jha (Burari), Sarita Singh (Rohtas Nagar), Som Dutt (Sadar Bazar), Sharad Kumar (Narela), Shiv Charan Goel (Moti Nagar), Sukhbir Singh (Mundka), Vijendar Garg (Rajinder Nagar) and Jarnail Singh (Tilak Nagar).
The notification with President's assent was issued on January 21 saying "...Having considered the matter in the light of the opinion expressed by the Election Commission, I, Ram Nath Kovind, President of India, in exercise of the powers...do here hold that the aforesaid 20 members of the Delhi legislative assembly stand disqualified from being members of the said assembly."
