Today was the third consecutive day of arguments in the case.
The case has its genesis in the split of the Shiv Sena political party into two factions, one led by Uddhav Thackeray and the other led by Eknath Shinde, who went on to replace Thackeray as Maharashtra’s Chief Minister after the split.
Rebel MLAs of the Shinde faction received disqualification notices from the then Deputy Speaker for acting against the party whip while voting during the Member of Legislative Council (MLC) elections in the State.
The Supreme Court was called to consider whether rebel Members should be disqualified. On June 27, 2022, the Court granted interim relief to Shinde and his rebel group of MLAs by extending the time to file responses to the disqualification notices sent by the Deputy Speaker, till July 12. Subsequently, the Court on June 29 also gave the go-ahead to a floor test called for by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
This led to the fall of the Thackeray government, following which Shinde took oath as Chief Minister with the backing of the BJP, which is the single largest party in the House.
The Thackeray camp, meanwhile, filed various petitions before the top court. One of the petitions has challenged the summoning of the Assembly by the Governor of Maharashtra for conducting the floor test.
Another petition challenged the order of the then newly-appointed Speaker removing Ajay Chaudhary and Sunil Prabhu from the posts of leader as well as Chief Whip of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party, respectively.
Further the top Court was also called to decide on which faction of the split party had rights over the Shiv Sena’s bow-and-arrow symbol.
The matter was eventually referred to a Constitution Bench by a Bench headed by then CJI NV Ramana in August last year. Final hearings in these petitions began earlier this week.
In yesterday’s hearing, the Supreme Court queried whether its Constitution Bench decision in Nabam Rebia, concerning the power of the Deputy Speaker to initiate disqualification proceedings, can be tweaked by another five-judge bench.
On Tuesday, Sibal had voiced a note of protest that while the Court takes years to decide on election cases concerning some States, it sits on a day-to-day basis to discuss such matters for other States.
Source: Barandbench
