In the Shiv Sena vs Shiv Sena legal war, the Supreme Court on Monday pulled up Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar for not acting on disqualification pleas on time and tasked him to take up such petitions within one week.
The Apex court also asked the speaker to inform it within two weeks, of the timeline of how these disqualification proceedings would be conducted and expressed disappointment over the delay in the process of disqualifications that arose as a result of the rift within the Shiv Sena party between the Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde factions.
The court’s disapproval comes as the speaker of the Maharashtra assembly was earlier directed to decide the disqualification petition in a reasonable time, which he failed to deliver.
“The contentions in this writ are that despite the passing of months, the Speaker has not decided the disqualification petitions…Ld. SG appearing for Speaker submitted a complication…53+3 MLAs were disqualified from the two factions and 34 petitions were filed,” the CJI said during the hearing.
The CJI also noted that under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, the speaker cannot delay such proceedings indefinitely and Maharashtra Assembly Speaker’s actions represent a sense of disrespect to the directions passed by the Court.
For the unversed, Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Thursday began hearing the disqualification petitions filed by Shiv Sena factions led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray against each other.
A total of 34 petitions are being heard as a part of the Supreme Court-directed proceedings. Both factions are being represented by their respective lawyers.
While Anil Sakhre, the lawyer of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, said his team did not receive relevant documents from the opposite side, Ravindra Waikar, an MLA from the Uddhav Thackeray faction, told media that the Shinde group’s claim of not getting documents was part of its delaying tactic.
In July, speaker Narwekar issued notices to 40 MLAs of the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde and 14 of the Thackeray faction. The notice sought their response to disqualification petitions against them.
The notices were issued against a total of 54 MLAs, including CM Shinde and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray. But notice was not issued against Sena (UBT) MLA Rutuja Latke who was elected after the Shiv Sena split last year.
The Uddhav Thackeray faction had moved the apex court in July seeking direction to the state assembly speaker to expeditiously adjudicate the disqualification petitions in a time-bound manner.
The plea by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLA Sunil Prabhu, who as the chief whip of the undivided Shiv Sena had filed the disqualification petitions against Shinde and other MLAs in 2022, alleged Speaker Rahul Narwekar is deliberately delaying the adjudication despite the verdict of the apex court.
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