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21 AAP MLAs face setback in office of profit case

By Newsd
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AAP's media spend is four times that of previous government, reveals RTI reply
Source: NDTV

In a major jolt to the Aam Aadmi Party, the Election Commission of India on Saturday refused to drop the ‘office of profit case’ against 21 AAP MLAs. They are facing a threat of disqualification in the case.

The Election Commission stated that the legislators were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries, hence become accused in the “office of profit” case.

The order comes days before Chief Election Commissioner, Nasim Zaidi, demits office in July.

After coming to power in February 2015, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s government appointed 21 party lawmakers as Parliamentary Secretaries. The list of parliamentary secretaries include Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Adarsh Shastri, Madan Lal, Charan Goel, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Jarnail Singh and Rajesh Gupta.

The Delhi government sought to amend the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997, through a bill, so as to exclude the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the definition of “Office of Profit”.

However, in June 2015, the then President Pranab Mukherjee rejected the Delhi government’s bill to exclude the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the “Office of Profit” definition.

The Delhi High Court in September quashed these appointments of 21 Parliamentary Secretaries. AAP had said that the appointment of party MLAs as parliamentary secretaries does not amount to the creation of a “public office” and maintained that none of the parliamentary secretaries was given any special benefits.

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