President Ram Nath Kovind has upheld the membership of 27 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs who were accused of holding offices of profit as members of patient welfare committees in government hospitals.

The President’s order came on a day AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail, along with 11 other MLAs, in a case of alleged assault on chief secretary Anshu Prakash in February.

Activist Vibhor Anand had alleged that as chairpersons of the welfare societies, the MLAs directly interfered in the day-to-day functioning of hospitals and had also been provided office space.

In the July, the Election Commission had given its opinion to the President, which was disclosed after the presidential order on Thursday.

The opinion, signed by chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat and the two other election commissioners, says that the exemption from office-of-profit strictures extends to the patient welfare committees.

Another case on the disqualification of the 21 MLAs is pending in the high court.

The AAP said in a statement: “The party is of the firm view that such a fake complaint should have been consigned to the dustbin by the Rashtrapati Bhawan itself during the tenure of the previous President and should not have been forwarded to the Election Commission in the first place…. The AAP with full responsibility states that this harassment is confined to Members of the Delhi Legislative Assembly and the party affiliation of the victims is too very well known.”

The party asked the Election Commission: “Are you truly independent? Your actions suggest you are not. Unfortunately. Who pressurised you to pursue us with these malicious notices when no case existed at all? What is the reason for this selective malaise? First, you served the notice. Then you gathered thousands of pages worth information from various sources. When asked to share the hard copies of the same for individual defence, you refused….”