Sena vs Sena: Apex Court to consider listing plea of Thackeray faction against speaker's order

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider listing a plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar's order declaring the Shiv Sena bloc led by Eknath Shinde as the "real political party" after its split in June 2022.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray faction, that the plea, which was to be listed on Monday, has not come up.

"We will see it," the CJI said.

The top court on January 22 had issued notices to Chief Minister Shinde and other lawmakers of his group on the plea of the Thackeray faction challenging the speaker's order.

The court had then ordered a listing of plea after two weeks.

The Thackeray faction has alleged that Shinde "unconstitutionally usurped power" and is heading an "unconstitutional government".

In his order passed on January 10, Speaker Narwekar had also rejected the Thackeray faction's plea to disqualify 16 MLAs of the ruling camp, including Shinde.

Challenging the orders passed by the Speaker, the Thackeray faction has claimed they are "patently unlawful and perverse" and that instead of punishing the act of defection, they reward the defectors by holding they comprise the political party.