Three of the six expelled Bharatiya Janata Party members of Parliament caught on camera accepting money in the cash-for-questions scam on Wednesday filed an application in the Delhi high court seeking quashing of the expulsions and restoration of their memberships.
The petitioners also urged the court to restrain the Election Commission from issuing any notification to fill up the vacancies caused by their expulsions.
The three expelled MPs -- Chandra Pratap Singh, Suresh Chandelal and Yashwanth G Mahajan -- maintained that their expulsions were illegal and unconstitutional.
They contended that Parliament had no power to make such expulsions and as such the action taken by the Speaker Somnath Chattergee was in excess of the jurisdiction vested upon the former.
The petitioners, while pleading their innocence, complained that the Pawal Bansal Committee, which probed the issue, adopted a partisan approach by failing to give them the opportunity to defend themselves and hence violated the principles of natural justice.
On Tuesday, two other expelled MPs -- Narender Kumar Kushwar of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Manoj Kumar of the Rashtriya Janata Dal -- had moved the high court challenging Parliament's right to strip them of their membership.
© 2024 Rediff.com -