The Supreme Court on October 13 slammed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar for reducing the anti-defection proceedings against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and other MLAs to a “charade”, saying that he cannot “merrily” defer hearings and has to decide before the next elections.
Chief Justice Chandrachud, heading a three-judge Bench, said the Speaker has disregarded the court’s order on September 18 to prepare a time-schedule to complete the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the Shinde camp. The Bench had at the time given Mr. Narwekar a week to prepare the timeline and file it before the apex court.
On October 13, the Chief Justice said that “since nothing happened in the disqualification proceedings (against the Shinde camp) all these months, we will be constrained to say that he must take a decision in two months”. The court even considered ordering day-to-day hearings before the Speaker.
