New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has sought response from the Election Commission and AAP's National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal on a plea seeking derecognition of the party for allegedly filing forged documents at the time of its registration as a political party.
While issuing notice to Kejriwal and six of his party members, Justice Manmohan directed them to file their response within four weeks.
It also asked Election Commission of India (ECI) to file a counter affidavit within four weeks.
Rejoinder affidavit from the petitioner, if any, be filed before the next date of hearing, it said.
The court notice came on a plea filed by Janraajya Party, an unrecognised political party, which sought directions to the ECI to decide the issue of "whether or not AAP has indeed committed fraud and forgery while submitting the mandatory 100 affidavits of founding members to the poll panel at the time of its registration".
Advocates Lohitaksha Shukla and Raghav Awasthi, who filed the petition on behalf of Janraajya Party, submitted that the ECI instead of taking any action informed the petitioner that since the matter involves a criminal offence of forgery, it would not initiate any action until the police completes its investigation.
The plea has also sought necessary directions to the SHO of the police station concerned to register an FIR against the accused persons for criminal conspiracy, cheating and using forged documents as genuine ones.
It has said that the petitioner party had filed a complaint before poll panel on August 19, 2013 but the ECI has been delaying the matter without giving any plausible reasons.
The plea has claimed that two members who had filed an
affidavit during AAP's registration belonged to petitioner party.
It has said that no resolution was "passed by the National Working Committee of the Janraajya Party wherein the Respondents 3 and 4 (Oomendra Pratap Singh and Punit Nath Shukla) had resigned from the petitioner party and joined AAP".
"It is humbly submitted that according to Guideline (ix) of the Respondent 1 (ECI) framed under Section 29 A of the Representation of People Act of 1951 for political parties seeking registration, it is incumbent upon a political party seeking registration before the Respondent 1 to submit affidavits on behalf of 100 members stating that they are not members of any other political party.
"It is finally submitted that should the ECI come to a conclusion that forged documents were indeed submitted at the time of registration, it would be incumbent upon it to cancel the registration of the Respondent 2 (AAP) party in accordance with the findings of the Supreme Court...," the petition has said.
