The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list on October 13 a petition filed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar’s loyalist, Jayant Patil, to intervene with Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to hear disqualification proceedings against party legislators who have changed fealty to Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said the case would be listed on October 13 along with Uddhav Thackeray camp’s plea that Mr. Narwekar was sitting on disqualification proceedings against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his breakaway loyalists whose actions had led to a split in the Shiv Sena party.
On September 18, the top court had given the Speaker a week’s time to prepare a time schedule to open the pending disqualification proceedings against Mr. Shinde and other MLAs in his faction accused of defection.
