Supreme Court issues notice to Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Uddhav Thackeray group's petition

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena on a plea by the Uddhav faction of the Shiv Sena (UBT) against Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar's refusal to disqualify MLAs of the Shinde faction from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

After hearing the petition of the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging the Maharashtra Speakers decision, which ruled that the Eknath Shinde faction is the real Shiv Sena, a bench comprising Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Mishra issued a notice returnable after two weeks.

Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar had ruled in favor of the Eknath Shinde faction after both factions had a split in the United Shiv Sena, and a batch of petitions were filed before the speaker claiming exclusive ownership of the party symbol and name by each of them.

The Maharashtra Assembly Speaker declared on January 10 that the Shinde faction had a majority of 37 of 55 MLAs when the rival factions emerged in June 2022, and as a result, Sunil Prabhu ceased to be the whip of the party.

The UBT faction challenged the ruling of the speaker on the dismissal petitions against Eknath Shinde and 38 MLAs.

The Speaker had also dismissed the disqualification petitions filed by the Shinde faction against Thackeray faction MLAs, which meant that the Shinde faction would continue to remain in power in the state with the support of the BJP and the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

The Shinde faction has also challenged the speakers’ decision not to disqualify the MLAs of the Thackeray camp in the Bombay High Court.

Narwekar's verdict was delivered on the 34 petitions filed by the two rival factions of Shiv Sena against each other, seeking the disqualification of 54 members of the Assembly.

Those petitions arose from a split in the Shiv Sena party in June 2022, when Uddhav Thackeray was in power in the state in alliance with Congress and the NCP (known as Maha Vikas Aghadi). After the split, the Eknath Shinde faction joined hands with the BJP and the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP and came to power.

The allegation for seeking disqualification was that the members of both factions had not complied with the order of the Chief Whip of the party (persons responsible for organizing the party’s contribution to parliamentary business).

The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court ruled in May 2023 that the parties should approach the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly on the issue of disqualifications, as he has the appropriate constitutional authority to decide the disqualification petitions.