Delhi High Court asks Centre to decide AAP’s plea seeking temporary accommodation for party office in 6 Weeks
Today (June 05, 2024), the Delhi High Court directed the Central government to take a time-bound decision on providing temporary office accommodation for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 6 weeks. It came into line with an order of the Supreme Court on March 29, which directed AAP to leave its office near Rouse Avenue before June 15, as the land was assigned to expand judicial infrastructure. The interim order of the High Court is concerning AAP's plea for temporary accommodation; the one for seeking permanent office space will come up for hearing on July 10.
The AAP had moved the court last year by filing two separate petitions seeking a piece of land in the national capital for the construction of its offices in view of its status as a recognized national party or allotment of a housing unit on a license basis for the time being. Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra, representing AAP, said that a national party is entitled to a temporary office until land is given to it for the construction of a permanent party office. Further, he said that one of the ministers in the AAP government was willing to forgo his occupation of a unit on Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Marg in favor of the party.
The Central government lawyer said that the allotment has to come from the general pool and there is no exclusive list for political parties. He said the AAP was offered land in 2014 for the purposes of its offices but the same was not accepted and currently, allotting a housing unit from the pool was not feasible. As far as the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg unit was concerned, he had emphasized that it has to be returned to the government. The single-judge bench of the Delhi HC constituting Justice Subramonium Prasad stated that the AAP has no right to claim the unit of one of its Ministers at DDU Marg as its temporary office. It added, "Mere pressure or non-availability is no ground to reject [their plea]. Pressure is always there. Their representation is to be considered in six weeks by a reasoned order."
AAP had argued that its national party status entitled it to an allotment of 1,000 square meters to build proper offices for its national and state units. The plea highlighted, “The Memorandum dated 13.07.2006 clearly prescribes allotment of land up to 500 square meters to all National parties having up to 15 Members of Parliament in both Houses. Further, it also provides for an additional allocation of land up to 500 square meters for Delhi state units where the National Party has representation in the Delhi State legislature,” It argued that since offices had been allotted to other political parties, it became an obligation on the part of the Central government to allot land space to AAP.
