The Supreme Court decided on Monday to take up a case filed by the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray, which challenges the ruling of Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar dismissing the MLAs from the Eknath Shinde faction, who are the chief minister. Leading attorney Kapil Sibal brought up the issue during his appearance on behalf of the Thackeray group, arguing that an early listing of the case is possible or elections would need to be held.
Sibal said the case was supposed to be listed for hearing today but it is not listed. “It was to be listed today. If it can be listed… else elections are to be held,” he said.
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said, “Yes, we will list it.”
The Supreme Court sent notice to Shinde and 38 MLAs belonging to his faction last month regarding a plea by Sunil Prabhu (of the Thackeray faction) contesting the Speaker’s order. After the Shinde group petitioned the Bombay High Court, the High Court sent notice regarding the group’s case, contesting the Speaker’s decision to not remove the Uddhav Thackeray group from office.
In the apex court, along with the Maharashtra Speaker’s decision not to disqualify Shinde and his group, Thackeray faction also challenged the order of Speaker to recognise the Shinde faction as the ‘real Shiv Sena’ after its split in June 2022.
The Speaker’s decision came on January 10, nearly two years after Thackeray’s camp moved disqualification petitions against Shinde and his supporting legislators under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution.
Approaching the apex court against the Maharashtra Speaker Narwekar’s decision dismissing the disqualification petitions against Shinde and 38 “rebel” Shiv Sena legislators, the Thackeray faction said the decision was a “colourable” exercise of power based on “extraneous and irrelevant” considerations.
The Speaker was earlier asked to rule quickly on the disqualification petitions that were pending before him by the highest court. On June 23, 2022, following the MLAs’ uprising against Uddhav Thackeray, Sunil Prabhu—the Shiv Sena party whip—filed the disqualification petitions against the rebel MLAs. Uddhav Thackeray was reinstated as Chief Minister in May of last year after an 11-judge, five-judge Constitution bench ruled that the Maharashtra government, led by Eknath Shinde, could not be disqualified because Shinde had resigned rather than face an Assembly test of strength.
In May last year, 11 five-judge Constitution bench had held that it could not disqualify the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government and reinstate Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minster because the latter had chosen to resign instead of facing a test of strength in the Assembly.
In August 2022, the top court’s three-judge bench referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the issues involved in the petition filed by rival groups of Shiv Sena about the Maharashtra political crisis.
