The Supreme Court is set to pronounce its verdict on Thursday on a batch of petitions filed by rival Shiv Sena groups following the political turmoil in Maharashtra last year. The court order is expected to decide the fate of the Eknath Shinde-led government in the State.
The petitions were filed after Mr. Shinde’s rebellion, which led to the fall of the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray, and formation of a new government with the support of the BJP, under Mr. Shinde.
A five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud, Justices M.R. Shah, Krishna Murari, P.S. Narasimha and Hima Kohli had reserved the judgment on March 16.
The first petition was filed by Mr. Shinde in June last year after notices were issued by the then Deputy Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly against rebel MLAs under the 10th Schedule (disqualification on the ground of defection) of the Indian Constitution. Thereafter, petitions were filed by the Thackeray group challenging the then Maharashtra Governor’s decision to call for a trust vote and the swearing-in of Mr. Shinde as the Chief Minister. The election of the new Speaker, Rahul Narwekar, was also challenged.
It all started on June 21 last year, when Mr. Shinde, Leader of the Shiv Sena in the Maharashtra Assembly, suddenly left Mumbai with several Sena MLAs for Surat in BJP-ruled in Gujarat. This rebel group later flew to Guwahati. Disqualification proceedings ensued and notices were issued against the first batch of 16 MLAs. The group was granted 48 hours’ time to respond to the notices. The next day, the group led by Mr. Shinde filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the proceedings against the 16 MLAs.
A Vacation Bench of the apex court extended the time for the rebel group to respond, granting the faction 12 days to reply to the disqualification notices. The order intervening in the Deputy Speaker’s notice was unexpected. In this case, since the Speaker had resigned, the Deputy Speaker was the acting speaker.
Meanwhile, the rebel group sought the removal of the Deputy Speaker and also informed the then Governor about withdrawing support for MVA. The Governor directed that a floor test be conducted on June 30. The Mr. Thackeray-led group challenged the Governor’s decision to call for a floor test citing the pending disqualification proceedings against the rebel MLAs.
But the apex court refused to stay the floor test. The court said the result of the floor test will be subject to the outcome of the pending cases before the Supreme Court. On the same day, Mr. Thackeray resigned as the Chief Minister without facing the floor test.
In August 2022, a three-judge Bench led by then CJI N.V. Ramana referred all these cases to a five-judge Constitution Bench. One of the petitions before the apex court was to decide on which faction of Sena would get its name and its bow and arrow symbol.
On February 17, the Election Commission decided to allot the party name and symbol to the group led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Shinde.
