• Heavy costs should be imposed: Delhi High Court on third plea to remove Arvind Kejriwal from CM post

    National
    Heavy costs should be imposed: Delhi High Court on third plea to remove Arvind Kejriwal from CM post
    It also asks that Kejriwal be removed from his position as Delhi's chief minister following an investigation.......


    Digital desk: The Delhi High Court on Monday scheduled a hearing for April 10 for the appeal filed by Sandeep Kumar, a former member of the Aam Aadmi Party, which demanded Arvind Kejriwal's removal as Delhi's Chief Minister. 

    In an ED case concerning the excise policy, Kejriwal is currently being held in judicial detention.

    Judge Subramonium Prasad stated that Kumar should face severe consequences and asked him how Kejriwal could be the target of a quo warranto.

    The court ordered that the case be brought before the same division bench that had previously decided similar petitions, which was led by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan. 

    This is the third request for a prayer like this. Acting Chief Justice Manmohan led a division bench that dismissed the first two pleas.

    Kumar claims that by filing a writ petition in his capacity rather than a PIL, he has contacted the Court in his capacity as a Court of First Instance under writ jurisdiction. In addition to being a lawyer, he also claims to be a social worker and one of the founding members of the Aam Aadmi Party.

    The plea seeks issuance of a writ of quo warranto against Kejriwal by calling upon him to show by what authority, qualification, and title he is holding the office of the Chief Minister of Delhi.

    It also asks that Kejriwal be removed from his position as Delhi's chief minister following an investigation, either with or without backlash.

    Kumar has stated that he is personally resentful of his Union Territory's Chief Minister, who has been declared "incapable of holding the post" and "who can never function as the Chief Minister from the custody or prison," as defined by the Indian Constitution, and that he is voting in the Delhi Assembly Election.

    The plea states that Kejriwal has incurred incapacity to carry out his functions as the Chief Minister of Delhi under the Constitution and therefore, he cannot hold the post.

    “The right to have a government by the Constitution is a Constitutional Right of every citizen and voter. The Petitioner is an electorate/voter/citizen of NCT of Delhi and therefore he has a constitutional right to have a government as provided by the Constitution and anything otherwise violates his Constitutional Right to have a representative government with the Chief Minister at the head of the Council of Ministers to aid and advise the Lieutenant Governor (Article 239AA(4)),” the plea states.

    It was on March 21 when Kejriwal was detained. He was remanded to six days of ED custody by the trial court on March 22, and this was later extended by an additional four days. He was placed under judicial detention on April 1 and kept there until April 15. 

    The court turned down a public interest lawsuit (PIL) earlier this month that sought to remove Arvind Kejriwal from his position as chief minister. Vishnu Gupta, a social worker and National President of the Hindu Sena filed the PIL.

    A similar PIL had previously been dismissed by the bench, noting that the petitioner, Surjit Singh Yadav, had not demonstrated that there was a legal barrier preventing the imprisoned chief minister from holding public office. 

    The court had noted that the other Organs of the State should look into the situation and that there is no room for judicial intervention in it.