Justice Vibhu Bhakru directed that the matter be listed before a division bench after obtaining orders from the Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal.
The Delhi High Court on Monday transferred the plea of the eight disqualified AAP MLAs, which had sought the quashing of the order by the President, to a division bench even as it extended its order restraining the Election Commission of India (ECI) to issue bypoll notification.
Justice Vibhu Bhakru directed that the matter be listed before a division bench after obtaining orders from the Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal.
"Given the express directions issued by the Supreme Court, this Court considers it apposite that the present petitions be placed before the Division Bench of this Court. All contentions of the parties in this regard are open," the judge said in his order.
"In the meanwhile, respondent no.1 (ECI) is restrained from issuing any notification announcing by elections to fill up the vacancy caused due to the disqualification of the petitioners (MLAs) in these petitions," the court added.
The court's directions comes after the counsel appearing for advocate Prashant Patel, the complainant to the ECI, referred to the decision of the Division Bench of the Supreme Court of India in one of the cases where cases like the present one "must be heard by a Bench 0f at least two judges and be disposed within a period of eight weeks".
However, this submission was opposed by senior advocate KV Vishwanathan, counsel for the petitioners. He referred to the decision of the apex court in Monnet Ispat and Energy Limited vs Jan Chetna and others (2013) and contended that the present pleas must be ordinarily be heard and dsiposed off by a Judge sitting alone.
Countering the reference made his counterpart, Vishwananathan said that the directions in the case being referred were only to the Chief Justice to make the necessary arrangements.
"Since in the present case no such arrangement has been made, this Court should hear the petitions," he contended.
Following this, the court directed that the matter be listed before a division bench on Tuesday. The matter will be now heard by the bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Chander Shekhar.
Eight AAP MLAs namely Alka Lamba, Rajesh Rishi, Somdutt, Kailash Gehlot, Sarita Singh, Nitin Tyagi, Madanlal and Sharad Chauhan had moved the High court seeking quashing of the President's order to disqualify them.
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