Office-of-profit case: We gave AAP lawmakers ample opportunity to participate in hearings, says EC

The Election Commission on Saturday told the Delhi High Court that it had given “ample opportunity” to the Aam Aadmi Party legislators to participate in several hearings before the poll panel recommended their disqualification on January 19, PTI reported.

“However, its a matter of fact that the MLAs herein gave only illusory responses,” the Election Commission’s affidavit filed by lawyer Amit Sharma.

The affidavit further accused the AAP MLAs of “wilfully and deliberately” abstaining from participating in the proceedings. The commission said the lawmakers had themselves “been at fault” and those who seek relief “must come with clean hands”, NDTV reported.

“The present case is not a case of no opportunity, rather it’s a case where sufficient opportunity was evidently granted to the MLAs to present their case,” the affidavit read, according to NDTV.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by the MLAs challenging President Ram Nath Kovind’s decision to disqualify them based on the recommendation of the Election Commission. The AAP MLAs have alleged that the Election Commission had not given them a fair hearing before sending its recommendation to the president.

The poll panel also said that it was not bound to call the 20 MLAs for oral hearing before making its recommendations to the president. The commission claimed that the lawmakers’ plea seeking quashing of their disqualification was not maintainable as the president has already taken a decision on it.

The case

The MLAs are accused of holding offices of profit in the past as they were appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi government in March 2015. This was soon after they were elected to the Delhi Assembly.

In response to the Election Commission’s notices in March 2016, the AAP government had passed a bill amending the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997, to exempt the post from the definition of “office of profit”. The party maintained that the legislators did not hold offices of profit as they were not getting “pecuniary benefit”.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had claimed that they were “working for free”. But former President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected the bill in June 2016.

In September 2016, the Delhi High Court had scrapped their appointment as parliamentary secretaries. The MLAs then told the Election Commission that since the High Court had declared their appointment null and void, the poll panel could not hear a petition against them for holding an office that never existed.

The commission did not agree with their view and wrote to the president that the MLAs “did hold de facto the office of parliamentary secretaries” from March 13, 2015 to September 8, 2016.