SC to hear Sharad Pawar faction’s plea on disqualification petitions on Oct 13

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court said on Monday it will hear on October 13 a plea by the Sharad Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for a direction to the Maharashtra Assembly speaker to expeditiously decide the disqualification petitions against deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and party MLAs loyal to him.

The matter came up for hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, which said it will be heard along with a separate pending petition on Shiv Sena MLAs.

The bench said in the pending matter, the apex court had asked the Assembly speaker to spell out the timeline for adjudication of the disqualification petitions against Shiv Sena MLAs owing allegiance to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

“What we will do is we will list that matter and this matter on Friday (October 13),” said the bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

On September 18, the apex court had asked Maharashtra Assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar to fix a timeline within a week for adjudication of the disqualification petitions filed against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Shiv Sena MLAs loyal to him who had tied up with the BJP to form a new government in June 2022.

During the brief hearing on Monday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for petitioner Jayant Patil, said the disqualification petitions were filed with the speaker on July 2 but no notice was issued on them till date.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the opposite faction, said one disqualification petition was filed in September and notice has been issued on it.