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SC seeks replies from Eknath Shinde, 38 MLAs on speaker’s favourable ruling
The three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by CJI Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud will take up the case after two weeks
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde and 38 other Shiv Sena legislators of his camp on a petition filed by the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) group, challenging the Maharashtra assembly speaker’s decision to dismiss the disqualification petitions against Shinde and the MLAs that supported him during the rebellion in 2022 and holding the CM’s faction to be the “real Shiv Sena”.
A bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, issued notices to all the 39 MLAs against whom the disqualification petitions had been filed by the Thackeray camp under the anti-defection law for defying the party whip in the House for the election of the speaker and the floor test in 2022.
The bench, which also comprised justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will take up the matter again after two weeks.
The Shiv Sena suffered a vertical split in June 2022 when Eknath Shinde and 38 other legislators joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the government. The rebellion brought down the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.
During the brief hearing on Monday, the court asked senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who represented the UBT group, why they did not approach the high court in the first instance.
Responding, the senior lawyers pointed out that the term of the present assembly would perhaps be over by the time the high court decides their plea. The polls in the state are expected in October 2024.
“We are arguing on the breach of the judgment of this court...asking for an interpretation of the judgment of this court. Which other court can be in a better position to decide? Our request is that this court should only hear and decide,” Sibal submitted.
Agreeing, the bench issued notice on the petition filed by Thackeray faction’s chip whip and legislator Sunil Prabhu and fixed the hearing after two weeks.
In the petition filed through Sunil Prabhu, the UBT group called assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s January 10 order a “colourable” exercise of power based on “extraneous and irrelevant” considerations. It added that its conclusion was “erroneous” and went against the anti-defection law and the top court’s judgment of May last year directing the Speaker not to solely base its decision on the group possessing majority in the House by distinguishing between “legislative party” and “political party”.
“The Speaker by relying upon the ‘legislative majority’ to determine ‘who the political party is’ has conflated the concepts of ‘legislature party’ and ‘political party’ which is in direct violation of the law laid down by this court in Subash Desai judgment (in May 2022) that ‘political party’ and ‘legislature party’ cannot be conflated,” said Prabhu’s petition.
The finding that the group, which enjoyed support of a majority of legislators, represented the political party effectively amounts to bringing back the concept of ‘split’ under the erstwhile para 3 of the Tenth Schedule, which had been consciously omitted from the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law), it added.
The petition named Shinde as the sole respondent without making Speaker or the rebel MLAs as parties to the petition.
By its judgment on May 11, a constitution bench invalidated the Maharashtra governor’s decision asking then CM Thackeray to face a floor test last year and flagged a flurry of errors during the political drama that toppled the MVA government, but refused to put Thackeray back in the saddle because he voluntarily resigned instead of facing the trust vote in the assembly.
At the time, the court left it for Narwekar to decide the disqualification petitions pending against both Shinde and Thackeray groups, rejecting the Thackeray camp’s plea that the court should decide the disqualification petitions by itself because of the alleged bias of the BJP leader. By a separate decision on February 17, 2022, the Election Commission ruled that Shinde’s faction will inherit the Shiv Sena party’s name and its bow-and-arrow symbol.
Later, Prabhu approached the court again, complaining against the delay by Narwekar in deciding the disqualification petitions against the 39 rebel Sena MLAs, including Shinde.
Hearing Prabhu’s plea on October 13, the bench pulled up Narwekar, commenting that he reduced the adjudication of the disqualification petitions to a “charade”, adding that the speaker could not defeat the orders of the apex court by delaying his decision.
Emphasising that the sanctity of the anti-defection law must be maintained, the court on October 30 directed Narwekar to decide the disqualification petitions by December 31. This deadline was extended by another 10 days by the top court on December 15 following a request from Narwekar.
On October 30, the bench also set a deadline for another politically sensitive case in Maharashtra - the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) fissures that added a new party, and deputy chief minister, to the ruling coalition last year. It asked Narwekar to decide by January 31 the disqualification petitions filed by the Sharad Pawar camp against 40 MLAs of the breakaway faction, led by Ajit Pawar, for anti-party activities. These petitions were filed in July after Ajit Pawar split the party and joined the coalition government in the state as deputy chief minister. Sharad Pawar loyalist Jayant Patil had moved the top court in September last, seeking a directive to Narwekar for time-bound disposal of the disqualification petitions filed against Ajit Pawar and the MLAs backing him.
