HC seeks EC, Kejriwal's response on plea for AAP derecognition

New Delhi, Nov 6: 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.

PTI