In a major relief to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Delhi High Court today sets aside the disqualification of its 20 MLAs in the office-of-profit case and directed the Election Commission (EC) to hear the matter afresh.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar said that the Centre's notification disqualifying the AAP MLAs was bad in law and remanded their plea back to the EC.
Terming the EC's recommendation on disqualification as "vitiated", the bench said that there was violation of natural justice and no oral hearing was given to the MLAs before disqualifying them as legislators of the Delhi Assembly.
"Opinion of Election Commission of India (given to the President of India) dated January 19, 2018, is vitiated and bad in law for failure to comply with principles of natural justice," the court said.
An elated Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it is a victory of truth.
"The elected representatives were wrongfully disqualified. The high court has given justice to the people of Delhi. It is their victory. Congratulations to the people of Delhi," the AAP chief tweeted.
The bench, in its 79-page order, said that the opinion (of EC) is quashed for "violation of principle of natural justice namely failure to give oral hearing and opportunity to address arguments on merits of the issue".
"The order of remand is passed to the Election Commission of India to hear arguments and thereafter decide all the important and seminal issues, like what is meant by expression office-of-profit held under the government...," the court said