Speaker asks EC to quash office-of-profit complaint against 27 AAP MLAs
NEW DELHI: A Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Thursday urged the Election Commission of India (EC) to quash the office of profit complaint against 27 Aam Aadmi Party legislators for holding chairmanship of patients welfare committees (PWCs) in city hospitals.
Goel questioned the proceedings of the complaint in the EC, arguing that being a quasi-judicial body, the election body ought to follow principle of natural justice while evaluating the merits of the complaint.
He said President Pranab Mukherjee should have “consulted experts over the merits of the complaint before forwarding it to the election commission”. He said the complaint seemed “malicious” and are not legally “maintainable.”
“The election commission failed to follow even the basics of legal proceedings. I am not even a chairman of any PWC of a hospital, still the election commission sent me a notice just because the complainant named me in his list. The least the EC could have done is clarify as I hold a constitutional post,” Goel told reporters at a press conference held at the Delhi assembly.
Stating that the EC seemed to be functioning under “pressure”, he said it had ”violated” the constitutional norms as these posts are in the exempted list under the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 2007.
“The President forwarded the complaint to the EC on June 21. The commission asked the complainant to file an affidavit in the case, which was not correct. Within three days, the complainant filed a 30-page affidavit and on November 2 the commission issued a notice to MLAs including me. For four months the commission did not act on it, but suddenly it sent notices within a span of 10 days,” Goel said.
The speaker underlined that being a constitutional body, the election commission should adjudicate on such complaints as per its merits and it was unjustified on the part of the election body to give the complainant another chance to file evidence.