The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on an early date the question of maintainability of an appeal filed by Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) against the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker’s decision to dismiss disqualification petitions against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and supporting MLAs, while holding them as the “real” Shiv Sena, on January 22.
Appearing before a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sunil Prabhu, submitted that the petition needed to be heard urgently.
Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for one of the respondents, said an identical petition was filed by the Shiv Sena (UBT) camp in the Bombay High Court. It was still pending. Mr. Salve questioned how the same appellant could agitate an identical cause in two different courts at the same time.
Chief Justice Chandrachud said the case would be listed soon. The court indicated that it would hear on the question of maintainability before going into the merits of the petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution.
The Speaker’s decision came on January 10, nearly two years after Mr. Thackeray’s camp moved disqualification petitions against Mr. Shinde and his supporting legislators under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution in June 2022.
‘Real political party’
The Speaker discerned that Mr. Shinde faction was the “real political party” from the legislative majority it had commanded at the time the rival factions emerged.
“‘The Shinde faction’ was the ‘real Shiv Sena political party’ when the rival factions emerged on June 21, 2022,” Speaker Rahul Narwekar had announced.
The Speaker had also held that since ‘Shinde faction’ was the real political party, the UBT faction’s allegations that the Shinde faction violated the whip cannot be sustained.
The Speaker dismissed the UBT’s claims that the ‘Shinde faction’ had become ‘incommunicado’ with the SSLP (Shiv Sena Legislature Party) leadership after the ‘split’ as a “mere allegation”.
The UBT faction had filed disqualification petitions against the Shinde camp, alleging that they had ‘deliberately’ remained absent from the urgent meetings called for by the party leadership in June 2022. The disqualification petitions argued that the Shinde faction had illegally passed a resolution in June 2022 re-appointing Mr. Shinde as the SSLP leader and appointing Bharat Gogawale as the Chief Whip.
The Thackeray faction had contended that the Shinde camp had voted contrary to the whip issued by Sunil Prabhu in the election for the Speaker and the trust vote.
A five-judge Constitution Bench, on May 11 last year, had directed the Maharashtra Speaker, in his capacity as tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, to hear and decide the disqualification petitions within a “reasonable time”.
