The Delhi High
Court on Tuesday reserved its order on the pleas by seven BJP MLAs challenging
their indefinite suspension from the legislative assembly for interrupting
Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena's address at the start of the budget session.
Justice
Subramonium Prasad asked the parties to file short written submissions, if any,
within two days.
The court was hearing
petitions by the BJP MLAs -- Mohan Singh Bisht, Ajay Mahawar, O P Sharma, Abhay
Verma, Anil Bajpai, Jitender Mahajan and Vijender Gupta -- challenging their
indefinite suspension from the assembly till the conclusion of the proceedings
before the privileges committee.
Earlier, the
court had asked the privileges committee of the Delhi Assembly to hold off its
proceedings against the suspended MLAs in view of the pendency of the matter
before it.
The MLAs,
represented through senior advocate Jayant Mehta, had contended their
suspension till the conclusion of the proceedings before the privileges
committee was in violation of the applicable rules.
The authorities
of the assembly had assured the court that the indefinite suspension of the
MLAs was not an attempt to stifle dissent in the House and the privileges
committee proceedings against them would be concluded without any delay.
Senior advocate
Sudhir Nandrajog, appearing for the Delhi Assembly, had asserted that
suspension was a "self-discipline" mechanism in the face of
"series of misdemeanours" by the opposition legislators.
He had opposed
the petitions contending that the House holds a discretion in the matters of
maintaining its dignity and when the petitioners wrote a letter to the LG
tendering their apology, they could have addressed a similar letter to the
House as well for causing disruption.
The BJP lawmakers
had interrupted Saxena multiple times during his address on February 15 as he
highlighted the achievements of the AAP government, while they attacked the
Arvind Kejriwal government on a range of issues.
AAP MLA Dilip
Pandey had subsequently moved a resolution in the House for their suspension
which was accepted by Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, who also referred the issue to
the privileges committee.