Twenty AAP MLAs whose plea against disqualification is being heard afresh by the ...

Twenty AAP MLAs whose plea against disqualification is being heard afresh by the Election Commission today reiterated their demand that Delhi government and Assembly officials be cross-examined so that it could be proved the legislators were not holding an office of profit.

On the third day of the hearing, the lawmakers said it was imperative that the officials be cross-examined to establish if they derived any profit as parliamentary secretaries.

The hearing will continue tomorrow.

The Election Commission (EC) had on May 16 resumed the hearing in the case after the Delhi High Court set aside their disqualification for allegedly holding offices of profit.

The poll panel's decision to resume the hearing came after the high court termed the EC recommendation "vitiated" and "bad in law", and directed the commission to hear the issue afresh.

In an application filed before the commission during the hearing, the MLAs had said they would like to cross examine the secretary of the Delhi legislative assembly, and officials of the law and accounts departments of the Delhi government to verify whether they derived any "profit" from their work, used official cars and office space in the conduct of their duties.

They also demanded that Prashant Patel, the complainant, be cross-examined.

The officials had filed the documents before the EC on the issue of office-of-profit.

The commission had on January 19 recommended the disqualification of the 20 AAP MLAs. The legislators included Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, Sanjeev Jha, Rajesh Gupta, Kailash Gahlot, Vijendra Garg, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Madan Lal and Shiv Charan Goyal.

The others were Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, Anil Kumar, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh Dala, Manoj Kumar, Nitin Tyagi and Jarnail Singh.

President Ram Nath Kovind had accepted the commission's opinion the next day.