It also fixed September 23 as the next date of hearing. On August 29, it had reserved its order on the plea of AAP MLAs to reject the so-called second petition.
The Commission, in its order said, "the contents of paras...Make some extraneous/additional allegations and insinuations. Accordingly, these paragraphs...Are directed to be struck off from the reply dated December 28, 20l5 (the so-called second petition) of the petitioner."
The first petition was filed by advocate Prashant Patel before the President on June 19, 2015 seeking disqualification of the 21 AAP lawmakers for allegedly holding office of profit. He had filed additional documents as sought by the EC. But AAP had claimed that additional documents in effect were a second petition which should not be entertained.
But at the same time, the Commission also rejected the plea of the MLAs that the so-called second petition by Patel was not maintainable as it was not sent to the President like the first petition but filed before the poll body.
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In earlier hearings, the AAP legislators, whose
appointment as parliamentary secretaries is under challenge, had said the EC should consider only the first petition filed by Patel, who moved the plea before the poll body on which the President had sought opinion of the Commission.
They insisted the second set of documents were not maintainable. Patel, however, argued that the second set was "not a fresh petition but a response to details sought by the EC".
On July 27, the commission had rejected pleas of Congress, BJP and Delhi government to implead them as parties to the petition in the alleged office-of-profit case.
The EC issued notices to the AAP legislators in June after the petition was filed before it by Patel.
They had also sought personal hearings before the EC.
Delhi's AAP government had appointed 21 parliamentary secretaries to assist its ministers.
Subsequently, the city government sought to amend the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997, so as to exempt parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions in 'office of profit' cases.
However, the President refused to give his assent to the Bill.