New Delhi, January 19: A bench headed by acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal of the Delhi High Court on Friday refused to grant interim relief to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs in Office of Profit case. The next hearing will be on Monday, January 22, 2018.  In a major blow to the AAP government in Delhi, the Election Commission of India (ECI) earlier today, recommended to the President the disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs who allegedly held offices of profit. The poll panel, in its opinion to President Ram Nath Kovind said that the MLAs, being parliamentary secretaries, held offices of profit and were liable to be disqualified as members of the Delhi Assembly, news agency PTI reported.

It must be noted that if these MLAs are disqualified, it will pave way for by-elections in the Delhi Assembly.  Soon after EC’s recommendation, AAP had approached the Delhi High Court and claimed the Election Commission has never "touched this low", after the poll panel recommended disqualification of party's 20 MLAs for allegedly holding the office of profit.

As per reports, the President is bound to go by the recommendation of the Commission. Under the rules, petitions to the President seeking disqualification of lawmakers are referred to the EC. In the present case, the petition was made to disqualify 21 MLAs, but one resigned a few months back. "The EC should not be the letter-box of the PMO. But that is the reality today," AAP leader Ashutosh tweeted. “A person like me who has covered EC as a reporter during (T N) Seshan days, today I can say EC has never touched so low ever," he added.

To recall, the AAP has a massive majority in the 70-member Delhi assembly with 66 seats. The impending disqualification will take the number down to 45.  The 20 MLAs set to be disqualified include, Adarsh Shastri (Dwarka), Alka Lamba (Chandni Chowk), Anil Bajpai (Gandhi Nagar), Avtar Singh (Kalkaji), Kailash Gahlot (Najafgarh) -- who is also a minister -- Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Manoj Kumar (Kondli), Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), Nitin Tyagi (Laxmi Nagar), Praveen Kumar (Jangpura), Rajesh Gupta (Wazirpur), Rajesh Rishi ( Janakpuri), Sanjeev Jha (Burari), Sarita Singh (Rohtas Nagar), Som Dutt (Sadar Bazar), Sharad Kumar (Narela), Shiv Charan Goel (Moti Nagar), Sukhbir Singh (Mundka), Vijendar Garg (Rajinder Nagar) and Jarnail Singh (Tilak Nagar).

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 19, 2018 07:04 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).