The speaker had dismissed the disqualification petitions filed against MLAs of the Shinde faction by the Uddhav Thackeray faction as well as the disqualification petitions filed by Shinde faction against Thackeray faction.
This ruling effectively meant that the Shinde faction would continue to remain in power in the State with the support of BJP and the Ajit Pawar faction of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
This has now been challenged before the apex court by the Thackeray faction.
Speaker Narwekar in his decision had underlined that the Shinde faction had a majority of 37 of 55 MLAs when the rival factions emerged in June 2022 and as a result, Sunil Prabhu ceased to be the whip of the party.
Hence, Sunil Prabhu had no authority to call a meeting of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party (SSLP) and underlined that the WhatsApp message calling for the meeting was sent less than 12 hours in advance.
“A perusal of the Whatsapp message shows that the said message was sent on 12.31 am for a meeting scheduled on 12.30 pm. None of the Shinde faction members were ever served the notice of the meeting. Their disqualification submission is liable to be rejected. The petitioner’s case that they are liable to be disqualified must be rejected,” the speaker held.
Further, he ruled that Bharat Gogavale was validly appointed as whip of the party and Eknath Shinde was validly appointed the leader.
Source: Barandbench
