The Supreme Court has issued notice on a petition filed by Sharad Pawar’s faction of NCP, seeking direction to to the Speaker of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for expeditiously deciding the petitions pertaining to disqualification of Ajit Pawar and seven other MLAs under the anti-defection law.
A decision has been taken by the bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra for listing the petition on coming Friday.
The Court has also decided to list the Shiv Sena case (in which the Court had earlier issued directions to the Maharashtra Speaker to decide the disqualification matters in a timebound manner) along with the NCP matter.
Petitioner Jayant Patil, who moved the matter on behalf of NCP, was represented by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal. The Ajit Pawar faction was represented by Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who said the disqualification petitions were filed only in September and the petitioner very soon approached the Supreme Court.
Sibal, while refuting the above claim by Ajit Pawar faction, said that the petitions were filed way back in July. When CJI said that he will list the matter along with the Shiv Sena matter, Rohatgi said that the facts in both the cases were different.
The internal ongoing war of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) reached the Supreme Court when the Sharad Pawar faction, through MLA Jayant Patil, approached the Apex Court against the delay by Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar in deciding disqualification petitions against rebel MLAs led by Ajit Pawar.
The issue arose when a section led by Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel broke ranks with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and joined hands with the BJP and Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena. Ajit Pawar was sworn-in as the Deputy Chief Minister and eight other NCP MLAs took oath as Ministers in the Eknath Shinde-led government in July.
The official NCP reacted by moving a disqualification petition against Ajit Pawar and the eight MLAs who joined Shinde Government. In return, Ajit Pawar claimed that he had the support of majority of NCP MLAs and that he represents the ‘real’ NCP.
Praful Patel announced the appointment of Ajit Pawar (who was the leader of opposition till July 1) as the leader of the NCP legislative party in the assembly. Currently, the Election Commission of India is hearing a petition filed by Ajit Pawar faction, staking its claim to the NCP party’s name and its election symbol.