The Bombay High Court on Wednesday has issued notice to all the respondents in a petition lodged by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde led faction challenging the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker’s refusal to disqualify 14 MLAs of the Uddhav Thackeray faction.
The respondents include the aforesaid 14 MLAs, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar and the Maharashtra Legislature Secretariat. A division bench of Justice GS Kulkarni and Justice Firdosh Phiroze Pooniwalla pronounced the order and stated that the notices issued to the respondents are returnable on February 1, 2023. The matter is listed for hearing on February 8, 2024.
On January 10, Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narwekar declared that the Eknath Shinde led faction was the real Shiv Sena when the party split on June 22, 2022. Nonetheless, the Speaker dismissed petitions lodged by both factions seeking disqualification of MLAs of the other faction.
The Speaker declared Bharat Gogavle of the Eknath Shinde faction as the valid whip but denied to disqualify members of Uddhav Thackeray faction for violating the whip, mentioning that Eknath Shinde’s faction failed to prove that the whip for the confidence vote was served on Uddhav Thackeray faction MLAs.
Reportedly, Bharat Gogavale’s plea sought disqualification of the MLAs of the Uddhav Thackeray faction. The petition underlined that the MLAs are disqualified because they voluntarily gave up party membership and voted against the Eknath Shinde government in the confidence vote in an attempt to overthrow it in cahoots with NCP and INC MLAs.
Meanwhile, the faction led by Uddhav Thackeray has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Speaker’s decision insofar as it recognized Eknath Shinde group as the real Shiv Sena and rejected to disqualify the members of Shinde faction for defection as per the tenth schedule of the Constitution.
The Uddhav Thackeray faction criticised the Speaker for the verdict and accused him of colluding with Eknath Shinde. Earlier, Thackeray had raised an objection to a meeting between Narwekar and Shinde, ahead of the verdict in the Shiv Sena MLA disqualification case.