New Delhi, March 23: The Delhi High Court on Friday pronounced its verdict in the disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs for holding office of profit. The Election Commission will now consider each MLAs case based on merit. A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar had kept its decision pending since February 28, when it had reserved the judgement after the legislators, EC and other parties had concluded their arguments.

The Delhi HC said violation of oral hearing norms by EC and failure to communicate that OP Rawat after recusing had rejoined proceedings were the reasons to quash the January 19 order. However, Prashant Patel, petitioner in the 20 AAP MLAs disqualification case said the court has said that this case will be reopened. "I had just raised a constitutional issue, there is no setback for me", he said.

Saurabh Bhardwaj, AAP on relief to AAP MLAs said that 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.

Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Chief Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that all the elected MLAs have been wrongly disqualified.  “It’s a victory for truth. The representatives who were elected by the people of Delhi were wrongfully suspended. The Delhi High Court has given justice to the people. This is a victory for the people of Delhi. Congratulations to the people of Delhi”, Kejriwal tweeted. He said it is a victory for truth.

“The representatives who were elected by the people of Delhi were wrongfully suspended. The Delhi High Court has given justice to the people. This is victory for the people of Delhi. Congratulations to the people of Delhi”, Kejriwal added.

A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar kept its decision pending since 28 February, when it had reserved the judgement after the legislators, Election Commission of India (EC) and other parties had concluded their arguments.

During the arguments, the MLAs had told the court that EC's order disqualifying them for allegedly holding office-of-profit was passed in "complete violation of natural justice" as they were not given an opportunity to explain their stand before the poll panel.

The AAP MLAs are accused of holding offices of profit, as they were appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi government in March 2015. In September 2016, the Delhi High Court had ruled against their appointment as parliamentary secretaries, after hearing their pleas on a daily basis since 7 February.

The Election Commission had on 19 January recommended the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs - Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, Sanjeev Jha, Rajesh Gupta, Kailash Gahlot, Vijendra Garg, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Madan Lal, Shiv Charan Goyal, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, Anil Kumar, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh Dala, Manoj Kumar, Nitin Tyagi and Jarnail Singh. The President had accepted the Election Commission's opinion the next day.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 23, 2018 02:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).