A series of observations made by the Supreme Court towards the fag end of the Uddhav Thackeray-Eknath Shinde dispute over the “real’ Shiv Sena signalled the judges’ skepticism about the incumbent Maharashtra Chief Minister’s route to power.
For one, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading the Bench, had observed how the 39 rebel Shiv Sena legislators who made up the Shinde camp would have been disqualified under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution had the Supreme Court not stayed the hand of then Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal in an interim order on June 27, 2022.
The Bench had wondered whether its 2016 judgment in the Nabam Rebia case was more of “a caution than an absolute principle”. The Rebia judgment had held that a Speaker who was himself under a cloud should not hear and decide disqualification petitions of legislators under the anti-defection law until his own name was cleared.
