SC to hear Thackeray faction plea against Shinde Sena on August 7

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will hear on August 7 a plea from the Uddhav Thackeray group challenging Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narwekar's order declaring the Shiv Sena led by chief minister Eknath Shinde as the "real political party" after a split in June 2022.

The speaker had also axed the disqualification petition of the Thackeray faction against Shinde and the MLAs supporting him.

The apex court observation came a bench headed by chief justice DY Chandrachud when senior advocate Kapil Sibal flagged the issue of tagging the Thackeray plea with another pertaining to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) row.

Supreme Court clarifies

"The Shiv Sena matter is listed for hearing on August 6 and it is unnecessarily tagged with the NCP (case on Monday)," said Sibal, who appeared for the Thackeray faction.

The bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, clarified that it had said on Monday that the NCP and the Sena matter will be heard together one after the another.

On Monday, the bench had sought the responses of NCP rival Ajit Pawar and his 40 MLAs on a separate plea moved by the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP challenging Narwekar's decision declaring the Ajit Pawar group as the real NCP.

Assembly’s term to expire

It had taken note of the submissions of senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who appeared for the Sharad Pawar faction, that the plea needed an urgent hearing as the term of the Maharashtra Assembly expires in November.

The bench said on Monday that it will hear a plea filed by Jayant Patil and Jitendra Awhad from the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP.

The Thackeray group has filed a similar petition contesting the speaker's decision in favour of Shinde and his MLAs.

Assembly speaker’s orders

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

The Thackeray group accused Shinde of "unconstitutionally usurping power" and heading an "unconstitutional government".

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

Sena targets speaker

Challenging this, the Thackeray faction called the order "patently unlawful and perverse" and the defectors had been rewarded instead of being punished.

The speaker did not disqualify any MLA belonging to the rival camps.

The speaker's ruling cemented Shinde's position as the chief minister, 18 months after he led a rebellion against Thackeray.

Sena’s war within

Narwekar had said no party leadership can use provisions of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution (anti-defection law) to quell dissent or indiscipline within a party.

The Shinde group had the support of 37 out of the total 54 Sena MLAs when the party split in June 2022, the speaker noted. The Election Commission gave the 'Shiv Sena' name and 'bow and arrow' symbol to the Shinde faction in 2023. The Speaker held that the Sena chief didn’t have the power to axe any leader from the party.

(With Agency inputs)