SC to consider listing of Thackeray group’s plea against Maha CM, MLAs

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to consider listing of a plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s order declaring the Shiv Sena bloc led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as the “real political party” after its split in June 2022.

The speaker had also dismissed the disqualification petitions of the Thackeray faction against CM Shinde and his supporting MLAs. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoh Misra was urged by senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for UBT leader Sunil Prabhu, that the plea needed to be listed for hearing as even the term of the Assembly is nearing its end.

“I will see,” the CJI said and asked the senior lawyer to circulate an e-mail to this effect.

On January 22, the top court had issued notices to the chief minister and other lawmakers of his group on the plea of Prabhu, a leader of the Uddhav Thackeray faction.

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 that they comprise the real political party.

“All impugned decisions are premised on a common finding that the majority of legislators represented the will of the political party, and therefore, they are not liable for disqualification,” the plea said.

In his ruling on the disqualification petitions, the speaker did not disqualify any MLA belonging to the rival camps.