The Supreme Court in the case Sunil Prabhu v. Eknath Shinde observed and has deferred the petition filed by Shiv Sena, Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray member wherein it challenged Maharashtra Assembly Speaker’s refusal to disqualify the MLAs belonging to Eknath Shinde group.
The bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud in the case observed and could not take the matter today due to paucity of time. CJI agreed to list the matter at an earlier date for hearing.
The said bench also mentioned the issued of maintainability will be considered first.
The counsel, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter on behalf of the UBT group, wherein requesting for an early hearing.
The counsel expressed that because the other side is here my lords, it should not take another date …the other side is here , they should file their response if they want so that the matter can be.
Adding to it, the respondents, represented by Senior Advocate Harish Salve contended before the court that the present issue cannot be simultaneously heard in two different courts as the Shinde Faction has already approached the Bombay High Court at a previous instance, wherein it is challenged that the same order of the Maharashtra Speaker to extent he refused to disqualify Uddhav group MLAs.
Further, it has been raised that the respondents are coming against the maintainability of the present petition as well.
The bench headed by CJI stated that bench the bench would first hear the respondents on the issue of maintainability.
In the present case, the Speaker Rahul Narwekar dismissed the set of disqualification petitions filed by both the Shinde and Thackeray groups against each other.
The Speaker in the case held that the Shinde group was the ‘real’ Shiv Sena on the ground that they had a legislative majority (majority of MLAs) when the rival factions emerged in June 2022.
Therefore, the Speaker also recognized the whip appointed by Shinde as the official whip of the Shiv Sena party and held that there was no violation of the whip by the Shinde group MLAs.
Further, the Uddhav Sena challenges that the Speaker’s ruling violates the judgment of the Supreme Court in Subhash Desai v. Governor of Maharashtra, by conflating the concept of ‘legislature party’ with the ‘political party’.