On Monday, the Supreme Court granted the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar until February 15th to issue a definitive ruling regarding the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) side led by Sharad Pawar’s request to have rebel MLAs led by Ajit Pawar disqualified.
The Indian Chief Justice, DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, decided to prolong the deadline till February 15, 2024.
The top court had previously given Narwekar till January 31 to decide on the matter, on October 30, 2023. Two days before the deadline passed, the Speaker went to the highest court to request an extension of three weeks.
At the beginning of the hearing, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta informed the bench that the Speaker could not meet the deadline since he was preoccupied with ruling on the disqualification petitions brought about by the Shiv Sena case.
In an attempt to get an extension of time, the Solicitor General claimed that the Speaker would likely require three more weeks to impose his will even though the procedures are otherwise over.
Following Ajit Pawar’s separation from the party and appointment as deputy Chief Minister to the Maharashtra coalition government, a group led by Sharad Pawar filed disqualification petitions against eight MLAs for anti-party conduct in July 2023.
Following a similar ruling by the top court in the Shiv Sena party dispute between Uddhav Thackeray and the Eknath Shinde group, Jayant Patil, a supporter of Sharad Pawar, moved the apex court to request a directive from the Speaker for a time-bound resolution of the disqualification petitions.
The Speaker was then requested by the highest court to expedite the hearing of the disqualification petitions.
