In a major relief to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Delhi High Court today restored the membership of 20 disqualified MLAs of Delhi's ruling party, quashing the Election Commission recommendation in the office-of-profit case as "vitiated" and in violation of natural justice.
The court while setting aside the recommendation and the consequent Presidential order at the same time directed the poll panel to hear the matter afresh, observing no oral hearing was given to the MLAs before disqualifying them as legislators of the Delhi Assembly.
The disqualification had reduced AAP's strength in the 70-member Delhi Assembly from 66 to 46 but it did not pose a threat to the government as it continued to enjoy a majority.
A jubilant Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hailed the reinstatement of the MLAs, saying it was a "victory of truth" even as his party alleged that the EC's recommendation to disqualify 20 of its MLAs was a serious attempt to dislodge an elected government and demanded that the election commissioners either "resign" or "apologise".
"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," Kejriwal tweeted minutes after the HC order.
Hours after the high court order, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel allowed the disqualified MLAs to enter the House and take part in the ongoing budget session, following which 10 AAP MLAs attended the session amid chants of 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' by fellow legislators.
The EC had on January 19 recommended the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs - Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, Sanjeev Jha, Rajesh Gupta, Kailash Gahlot, Vijendra Garg, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Madan Lal, Shiv Charan Goyal, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, Anil Kumar, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh Dala, Manoj Kumar, Nitin Tyagi and Jarnail Singh. President Ram Nath Kovind had accepted the EC's opinion the next day.
Remanding the MLAs' plea for being reinstated back to the EC, a bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar, said, "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 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
Reacting to the high court order, Congress's Delhi unit president Ajay Maken tweeted, "We will fight it out in the Election Commission again as these 20 MLAs have enjoyed perks. HC has not disputed or denied this. The HC has just asked ECI to look at it again in the light of natural justice!"