Supreme Court to hear Thackeray group's plea against speaker’s decision refusing to disqualify MLAs

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to take up on January 22 a plea by Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena challenging Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s orders dismissing disqualification petitions filed against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and other MLAs.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said the matter would be considered on Monday.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter before the bench on behalf of the Uddhav Thackeray faction.

The plea filed by UBT group's Sunil Prabhu contended the Speaker's orders of January 10, 2024, recognising the Shinde group as the 'real' Shiv Sena were unlawful and perverse and in the teeth of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Subhash Desai Vs Governor of Maharashtra (2022).

It claimed the Speaker has not even considered the main undisputed event, i.e., the oath-taking on June 30, 2022, which conclusively established that all their acts from June 21, 2022, were to topple the elected government in Maharashtra led by their own political party.

"There could not have been a clearer case of disqualification. Shinde met the Governor and took oath as Chief Minister with the support of the BJP on June 30, 2022, and all the respondent MLAs supported this decision, which itself amounted to voluntarily giving up membership of the political party," it said.

Their plea filed through advocate Nishanth Patil said the Tenth Schedule is intended to disqualify legislators who act against their political party.

“However, if majority of legislators are treated to be the political party, then the members of the actual political party become subject to the will of the majority of legislators. This is totally against the constitutional scheme, and is consequently liable to be set aside,” the plea said.

By treating the majority of legislators as representing the will of the political party, the Speaker has in effect equated the legislature party with the political party, which is in the teeth of the law laid down by the apex court in Subhash Desai’s case, it said.