The Supreme Court has said that it would take up the matter pertaining to the allotment of the ‘Shiv Sena’ name and its ‘bow and arrow’ symbol, after the court hears the challenge to the deletion of Article 370 of the Constitution.
The case pertaining to Shiv Sena was mentioned by Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, who represented former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackerey early morning.
The counsel of Thackeray while urging for an early hearing of the case, argued that the issue was already covered by the Constitution bench judgment in the Maharashtra Politics case.
However, the Court said the matter would be taken up after the cases concerning the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution are heard.
A bench comprising of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud along with Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra noted that the Shiv Sena dispute would require time for a final decision.
The Court said that the matter cannt be decided in 2 minutes. Let Article 370 get over, we will list it.
A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court is slated to start final hearings in the Article 370 case from tomorrow.
The decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been challenged by Thackeray to allot the ‘Shiv Sena’ name and the ‘bow and arrow’ symbol to the faction led by incumbent Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde
The top court had refused to stay the ECI order but had issued notice on the plea by the Uddhav Thackeray faction against the February 17 ECI order.
The Shiv Sena political party split into two factions last year, one led by Thackeray and the other by Eknath Shinde, who went on to replace Thackeray as Maharashtra’s Chief Minister in June 2022 after forging alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
A petition was then filed by Shinde to ECI staking a claim to the ‘Shiv Sena’ name and the bow and arrow symbol.
The ECI relied on the strength of the legislative wing of the party to arrive at its decision rather than on the test of its organisational wing.
The ECI explained that although it had attempted to apply the test of the organisational wing, it could not come to any satisfactory conclusion because the latest constitution of the party was not on record.
The claims of numerical majority in the organisational wing of the party by both factions were not satisfactory, the ECI had opined.
Hence, it proceeded to rely on the test of who had the majority in the legislative wing.
The Shinde faction was noted to have 40 Members in the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) as against the Thackeray faction’s 15 MLAs.
The ECI founfd that in the Lok Sabha , out of 18 Members of Parliament (MPs), 13 MPs supported the Shinde faction, while only 5 supported the Thackeray faction.
Considering this, the ECI ruled in favour of the Shinde faction and allowed it to retain Shiv Sena name and the bow and arrow symbol.
In the case concerning politis of Maharashtra , a Constitution bench led by CJI Chandrachud had said that the Speaker and the ECI are empowered to concurrently adjudicate on the petitions before them concerning defection and rival claims on who constitutes the real political party.
The Court had added that while adjudicating petitions under paragraph 15 of the Symbols Order, the ECI may apply a test that is best suited to the facts and circumstances of the case before it.