NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear and list the petition, filed by aggrieved Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena, challenging the order of Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar on the dismissal of disqualification pleas against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde faction MLAs.
A bench of the Apex Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr DY Chandrachud said that the court could not take up the matter for hearing today due to paucity of time. He, however, said that the case would be heard as early as possible. He, did not fix any date to hear the appeal of Uddhav Thackeray faction but indicated that the matter would be taken up likely for hearing on Friday.
When the bench was about to rise this evening, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter on behalf of the UBT group, requesting for an early hearing.
He expressed, "It should not take another date...the other side is here, they should file their response so that the matter can be heard..."
To which the respondents, represented by Senior Advocate Harish Salve contended that the present issue cannot be simultaneously heard in two different courts as the Shinde Faction has already approached the Bombay High Court at a previous instance.
The Apex Court however agreed to hear the pleas first on the maintainability point.
Last month, the Supreme Court had issued notice to Eknath Shinde and 38 MLAs of his group on Sunil Prabhu’s (Thackeray faction) plea challenging the Maharashtra Speaker’s order.
The appeal was filed before the Supreme Court by the aggrieved Uddhav Thackeray-led faction, challenging the Maharashtra State Assembly Speaker's order which refused to disqualify Eknath Shinde and 15 other MLAs.
The faction also challenged the Speaker's order ruling that Eknath Shinde-led group is the real Shiv Sena.
Maharashtra State Assembly Speaker, Rahul Narwekar on January 10 had in his order declared that the faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was “the real political party” and "real Shiv Sena".
The UT group has also challenged before the court, the dismissal of disqualification pleas against Shinde faction MLAs who rebelled & split the party in June 2022, bringing Sena (UT) MLAs under Shinde faction's control.
The UT Group's petition copy, revealed that the state Assembly Speaker's orders are erroneous, as it holds that the 2018 leadership structure cannot be relied upon.
"The orders of the State Assembly Speaker, is, without the consideration of the main grounds of the disqualification pleas, which have been filed by them (UT group)," the plea stated.
"The Speaker's order ex-facie ultra vires the provisions of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution as much as it appreciates the legislative majority of the ‘Shinde faction’ for the purpose of determining which is the 'real' political party. The order is a complete colourable exercise of power and is based on extraneous and irrelevant considerations. The Speaker has relied upon ‘legislative majority’ to determine which is the real political party," the petition of UT faction, said.
"The Speaker must not base his decision as to which group constitutes the political party on a blind appreciation of which group possesses a majority in the Legislative Assembly. This is not a game of numbers, but of something more," it said.
"The Speaker’s order is also in flagrant violation of the judgement of the Supreme Court in Subhash Desai case, which has categorically laid down the fundamental difference between ‘legislature party’ and ‘political party'," the plea said.
The Speaker's order is completely perverse in its appreciation on merits as it has not even considered the admitted factual position regarding disqualification under relevant statute. These are simply brushed away by stating that since ‘Shinde faction’ has been held to be the political party “none of the grounds could be a ground to seek disqualification”, it said.
"The Speaker has perversely failed to consider the clear evidence demonstrating the service of whips on the MLAs through unimpeached emails," the plea added.