Delhi Govt to bring bill on office of profit issue

With several Congress lawmakers facing expulsion over the office of profit issue, the Delhi Government today decided to enact a law to avert such a situation.

With several Congress lawmakers facing expulsion over the office of profit issue, the Delhi Government on Tuesday decided to enact a law to avert such a situation and convened a special session of the Assembly on May 18 to pass the Bill.

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The decision to convene the one-day session was taken at an emergency meeting of the Delhi cabinet on Tuesday chaired by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

"The Cabinet has decided to convene a special session of the Delhi Legislative Assembly on May 18 to pass a Bill to prevent disqualification of lawmakers," she told reporters after the hour-long meeting.

"We are making efforts to bring a Bill like other states such as Haryana and UP. The Centre is taking steps in the matter, but we at the state level also have to do something," she added.

The Election Commission has issued notices to 19 Congress MLAs and Sajjan Kumar, MP on a complaint filed by BJP MLA Vijay Jolly last month seeking their disqualification on the grounds that they were holding offices of profit.

The Election Commission has given the lawmakers time till May 22 to reply to the notices.

The MLAs under the scanner are Naseeb Singh, Narendra Nath, Anjali Rai, Mateen Ahmed, Rajesh Jain, Prahlad Singh Sawhney, Braham Pal, Ambrish Singh Gautam, Rajesh Lilothia, Bijender Singh, Balram Tanwar, Kiran Walia, Ashok Ahuja, Tajdar Babbar, Vijay Singh Lochav, Mahabal Mishra, Kanwar Karan Singh, Veer Singh Dhingan and Bhisham Sharma.

Several of them had handed over their resignations to Dikshit.