Delhi HC asks 7 suspended BJP MLAs if they are willing to apologise to LG

The Delhi high court on Tuesday asked seven Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs, who were suspended from the Delhi assembly for interrupting lieutenant governor (LG) VK Saxena’s address on the first day of the Budget Session, if they were willing to apologise to LG as it considered their plea for reinstatement to the House.

The matter will now be heard on Wednesday as the MLAs sought an adjournment citing a new development.

The court issued the direction after taking note of speaker Ram Niwas Goel’s proposal to end the suspension in case the MLAs agreed to meet him, and apologise to Saxena. “The issue here is the dignity of the officer. I had the occasion to speak to the Speaker. He has suggested the route followed by the Supreme Court in Raghav Chadha’s case. If members were to come and meet the Speaker and apologise to LG, the whole thing could be settled,” senior advocate Sudhir Nandrajog, appearing for the Delhi assembly and the Speaker, submitted before the bench of justice Subramonium Prasad.

Though the MLAs appearing through senior advocate Jayant Mehta initially said that there was no difficulty in apologising, the counsel later urged the court to adjourn the plea for Wednesday saying that there had been some new development.

The court issued the direction while considering the pleas filed by the seven MLAs challenging their suspension. In their plea to the high court, the MLAs said that the act of suspension and referring the matter to the privileges committee was illegal. They submitted that they could only be suspended for a period of three days; in this case, the suspension was indefinite and they could not be punished for the same offence twice.

The plea asked the court to permit them to participate in the assembly proceedings, saying non-participation would result in non-representation of the constituencies to which they belong.

“The respondent (Delhi legislative assembly) does not have any power to pass a motion that resulted in the suspension of an elected MLA beyond the expiration of the immediate session of the legislative assembly. The petitioners belong to the BJP, the main opposition party in the assembly. That the duties cast upon the speaker have not been exercised cautiously, carefully, and legally,” said the plea.

On February 15, seven BJP MLAs — Mohan Singh Bisht, Ajay Mahawar, OP Sharma, Abhay Verma, Anil Vajpayi, Jitender Mahajan and Vijender Gupta — interrupted LG’s address outlining the policies and work of the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government, following which they were marshalled out of the House. On February 16, the assembly referred the matter to its privileges committee and suspended the MLAs till the panel took a decision.