President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking the disqualification of 27 AAP MLAs in office for profit case. Kovind took the decision after seeking opinion from the Election Commission.
(Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)The petition filed by one Vibhor Anand had sought the disqualification of 27 AAP MLAs arguing that they held Office of Profit by being the chairperson of Rogi Kalyan Samiti in the government hospitals in Delhi.
These MLAs were Alka Lamba (Chandni Chowk), Shiv Charan Goel (Moti Nagar), Jagdeep Singh (Hari Nagar), Bandana Kumari (Shalimar Bagh), Ajesh Yadav (Badli), S.K. Bagga (Krishna Nagar), Jitendra Singh Tomar (Tri nagar), Rajesh Rishi (Janakpuri), Rajesh gupta (Wazirpur), Ram Niwas Goel (Shahdara), Vishesh Ravi (Karol Bagh), Jarnail Singh (Rajauri Garden), Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), Nitin Tyagi (Laxmi Nagar), Ved Prakash (Bawana), Somnath Bharti (Malviya Nagar), Pankaj Pushkar (Timarpur), Rajendra pal Gautam (Seemapuri), Kailash Gahlot (Najafgarh), Hazarilal Chouhan (Patel Nagar), Sharad Kumar Chauhan (Narela), Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Rakhi Birla (Mangolpuri), Mohammad Ishraque (Seelampur), Anil Kumar Bajpai (Gandhi Nagar), Surender Singh (Delhi Cantonment) and Mohinder Goyal (Rithala).
The AAP welcomed the decision. Dilip Pandey of AAP was quoted as saying, “What’s happening with the CBI today is an example of BJP’s attempts to undermine the constitutional institutions. It had all started with targeting of the AAP government in Delhi, raids on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers, and an earlier attempt to disqualify 21 party MLAs in another office of profit case.”
The Election Commission in its advice had said that the chairperson in Rogi Kalyan Samiti in hospitals of Delhi government fell under the exempted category of the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997 and, therefore, the AAP MLAs did not deserve to be disqualified.
A three-member Commission headed by Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat had said, “It is pertinent to note that while it is an established fact that some of the respondents have never been appointed to the said office, the finding that the said office falls under exempted category makes it redundant to comment on the cause of non-disqualification individually.”