Shiv Sena vs Shiv Sena: SC agrees to early hearing on Uddhav Thackeray group's plea against Maha speaker's decision

Uddhav Thackeray. File pic

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list a petition by Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena challenging the order of Maharashtra Assemble Speaker Rahul Narwekar on the dismissal of disqualification pleas against the MLAs of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's faction, news agency ANI reported.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal who appeared for the Thackeray group mentioned the matter for early listing as the elections are nearing.

Sibal said, "The matter was to be listed today. If it can be listed else elections are to be held," he said, ANI reported. A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra agreed to list the matter.

Last month, the Supreme Court issued notice to CM Eknath Shinde and 38 MLAs of his faction on Sunil Prabhu's plea challenging the Speaker's order. Prabhu is from Uddhav Thackeray faction.

Shinde's faction had approached the Bombay High Court challenging the refusal of the Speaker to disqualify the Uddhav Thackeray group and the High Court issued a notice on the petition, ANI report said.

In the apex court, along with the Maharashtra Speaker's decision not to disqualify Shinde and his Shiv Sena faction MLAs, Thackeray faction also challenged the order of the Speaker to recognise the Shinde's faction as the 'real Shiv Sena' after its split in June 2022.

Maharashtra Assemble Speaker, Rahul Narwekar's decision came on January 10, nearly two years after Uddhav Thackeray's camp moved disqualification petitions against Eknath Shinde and his supporting legislators under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Indian Constitution.

Thackeray faction has alleged that Narwekar's decision of dismissing the disqualification petitions against Shinde and 38 "rebel" Shiv Sena legislators, was a "colourable" exercise of power based on "extraneous and irrelevant" considerations.

The disqualification petitions against the rebel MLAs were filed by Sunil Prabhu, the Shiv Sena party whip appointed by Uddhav Thackeray, on June 23, 2022. It was after the MLAs revolted against Thackeray, and along with Eknath Shinde announced their support to the Bhartiya Janata Party and formed the government.

In May last year, 11 five-judge Constitution bench had held that it could not disqualify the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government and reinstate Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minster because the latter had chosen to resign instead of facing a test of strength in the Assembly.

(With ANI inputs)