Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

The Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal expressed happiness at the Delhi high court verdict that nulls the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs in the office-of-profit case. Kejriwal called it a “victory of truth”.

The chief minister took to tweet, “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.”

Reactions on the verdict

The order was welcomed by the members of AAP. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia joined AAP legislators in thumping tables in the Delhi Assembly during the ongoing budget session. The house witnessed MLAs shouting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” in the Assembly after the order.

Party leader Saurabh Bharadwaj told the ANI, “The MLAs were not given a chance to put their point, so now the court has given them a chance to do that. The EC will hear their plea again.”

A media advisor to Kejriwal, Nagender Sharma, said, “The verdict is a tight slap on Modi govt appointed biased Election Commission.”
“ALL three commissioners (EC) should resign on their own,” he tweeted on Friday.

The Election Commission had disqualified twenty AAP MLAs in January this year for holding office-of-profit when they were appointed parliamentary secretaries in 2015.

What the petitioner has to say?

Prashant Patel, the lawyer who had petitioned to the then president Pranab Mukherjee in 2015, said the verdict was not a setback for him. “The court has said that this case will be reopened. I had just raised a constitutional issue, there is no setback for me.”

Court’s stand on the issue

The court has asked the Election Commission to hear the case afresh. The court held that the MLAs were not given proper hearing before the poll panel decided their disqualification. It referred the case back to the Election Commission for reconsideration.

By saket