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The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday, dismissed the petition of 21 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs in Delhi seeking to call the officials of the Government and State Assembly as witnesses to prove they did not hold office of profit as Parliamentary Secretaries during the current tenure of Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi’s Chief Minister.
A 42-page order issued on Tuesday, and signed by Chief Election Commissioner, OP Rawat, points out that the applicants/respondents had undertaken before the High Court that they shall file ‘a consolidated application’ before the Commission. The Delhi High Court had allowed the petitioners to approach the EC to cross examine Delhi Government officials. This plea now stands rejected by the EC.
EC’s statement
“They have filed an application which is not only in flagrant violation of the format prescribed under the ECI procedure, but also the omission of the necessary information, makes it impossible for this application to be granted. Omitting the names of the witnesses, their address, the specific document or the fact in relation to which a particular witness is required to be called, strikes at the very core of this,” the Commission’s order stated.
The Commission points out that the plea of 21 MLAs may not be permissible when documents record their presence as Parliamentary Secretaries.
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