BJP's petition for dismissing CPSs and PSs disposed off

Shimla, May 26 (UNI) The Election Commission of India has disposed off the Himachal Pradesh unit of the BJP's petition seeking disqualification of Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPSs) and Parliamentary Secretaries (PSs) from the state assembly for holding office of profit, a spokesman of Raj Bhawan today said.

The MLAs, holding the posts of CPSs and PSs, were not liable for disqualification because the posts were exempted under Section 3(d) of the HP Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1971, he said, in an official release here.

The HP High Court had struck down the appointment of Mukesh Agnihotri, Thakur Singh Bharmauri, Anita Verma, Prem Singh, Tek Chand, Harshwardhan Chauhan, Lajja Ram as CPSs and Jagat Singh Negi, Surinder Kumar, Sudhir Sharma and Raghubir Singh as PSs on August 18, 2005 after which the matter was referred to the Election Commission.

The spokesman said Governor V S Kokje had received the EC's copy that said the MLAs were not liable for disqualification for holding the office of profit, while disposing off the BJP's petition.

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