Office of Profit case: 21 AAP MLAs to appear again before EC

New Delhi: Twenty one Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs will today appear again before the Election Commission here in connection with an Office of Profit case. The AAP MLAs are facing the threat of disqualification in the case. The commission had postponed hearing in the case for one week on July 14. This has been done to give an opportunity to the AAP, BJP and the Congress to present their stand in the matter. The AAP Government in Delhi had appointed 21 parliamentary secretaries to assist its ministers. Earlier in June , President Pranab Mukherjee withheld the assent to a Bill passed by the Delhi Government in June 2015 to exempt the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the purview of an office-of-profit with retrospective effect. The decision raised questions over the fate of 21 AAP MLAs holding the post. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had passed an order appointing the 21 MLAs, including Alka Lamba, Jarnail Singh, Adarsh Shastri and Rajesh Gupta, as Parliamentary Secretaries on March 13 last year. Attempting to save from disqualification provisions for holding two offices of profit at one time, the Delhi Government then sought to amend the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of the Disqualification) Act, 1997. The Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification Amendment) Bill- 2015 was forward by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung to the Centre, which in turn sent it to the President with its comments.