{"id":30323,"date":"2018-10-26T15:23:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T09:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=30323"},"modified":"2018-10-26T15:23:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T09:53:08","slug":"principle-procedure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/principle-procedure\/","title":{"rendered":"Principle &#038; procedure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/principle-procedure\/article23359144.ece\"><strong>Principle &amp; procedure<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Delhi High Court verdict setting aside the disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs in Delhi is a searing indictment of the manner in which the Election Commission handled the complaint that they held offices of profit while serving as parliamentary secretaries. For a body vested with the crucial power to determine whether lawmakers have incurred disqualification in certain circumstances and advise the President or the Governor suitably, this is an embarrassing moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Violation of Principles of Natural Justice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The court has not reviewed its decision on merits but it has ruled that the EC violated the principles of natural justice, examples<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Commissioner O.P. Rawat, who had recused himself at an earlier point, rejoined the process without intimation to the legislators<\/li>\n<li>Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, who had not heard the matter and assumed office only in September 2017, had signed the order<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Basic feature violated:<\/strong>It is a basic feature of judicial or quasi-judicial processes that someone who does not hear a matter does not decide on it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>EC should have tread lightly<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A pre-eminent constitutional body should be found wanting in ensuring natural justice while answering a reference from the President is a sad comment on its functioning<\/li>\n<li>It ought to have treated the matter with abundant caution, given the ease with which political parties tend to question the EC\u2019s impartiality<\/li>\n<li>The high court has acknowledged the EC\u2019s \u201clatitude and liberty\u201d in matters of procedure, but cautioned that any procedure should be sound, fair and just.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In proceedings that may result in unseating elected representatives, fairness of procedure is no less important than finding an answer to the question whether they have incurred disqualification<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Principle &amp; procedure Context The Delhi High Court verdict setting aside the disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs in Delhi is a searing indictment of the manner in which the Election Commission handled the complaint that they held offices of profit while serving as parliamentary secretaries. For a body vested with the crucial power&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/principle-procedure\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Principle &#038; procedure<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704914189},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}