The Delhi High Court bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar on Thursday (February 8) continued with the daily hearings of the appeals filed by 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs in the office of profit case. The MLAs have been disqualified by the Election Commission of India for holding an office of profit and their disqualification has been ratified by the President Ram Nath Kovind.

In today’s hearing, the petitioner’s counsel stated different judgments before the court to which the court responded that it was not concerned about the decisions taken in the past but the ones that the court has to take now. He told the court that the parliamentary secretaries and candidates do not get transport facility, on which the court asked the petitioner as to who in the Delhi government was not provided that facility.

The counsel told the court that it was the Speaker who told the chief minister to provide office to the MLAs, on which the court asked for the control of account report to be submitted. The court told the counsel that he was making it difficult for the court to understand. The court asked: “Kindly explain that those candidates removed for holding office of profit, were their appointments illegal or not?”

The court also refused to accept the example of the Jaya Bachchan case in which the actor-cum-politician was disqualified for holding an office of profit. The counsel had stated that in the case of Bachchan she was capable of yielding a profit, indicating thereby that these 20 cases are different.

The matter has been listed for February 12.

—India Legal Bureau