[BREAKING] Uddhav Thackeray camp moves Supreme Court against Governor's decision to appoint Eknath Shinde as Maharashtra CM

A fresh plea has been filed before the Supreme Court by the Uddhav Thackeray camp of Shiv Sena challenging the decision of the Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari inviting Eknath Shinde to form government in the State [Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra]. .The plea filed by General Secretary of Shiv Sena Subhash Desai was mentioned before a vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari by Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat, seeking urgent listing. The bench said that the matter will be heard on July 11 along with other cases related to the Maharashtra crisis already pending before the top court."It will all come up on July 11," Justice Banerjee said.The plea besides challenging the Governor's decision to invite Shinde to form government, the plea has also sought quashing of the proceedings of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly held on July 3 and consequently the election of the Speaker during that meeting.Pertinently, the petition has prayed that disqualification proceedings pending against 16 rebel MLAs including Shinde be withdrawn from the Speaker and decided by top court. This the plea said is in view of the "confusion/ambiguity created illegally by the ground that he Speaker by recognising a rebel MLA who has voluntarily given up his membership of the Shiv Sena as the leader of the House and also recognising another rebel MLA as the Whip of the Shiv Sena – both in contravention of the clear intent of the Shiv Sena undisputedly led by Shri. Uddhav Thackeray."The apex court is slated to hear on July 11, the plea relating to disqualification of MLAs who had joined the Shinde camp.Besides that, the Uddhav camp has also filed another petition objecting to the manner in which the newly elected speaker recognised the new whip appointed by Eknath Shinde camp.All these matters are likely to be heard together on July 11..The present petition by Desai said that the rebel MLAs' led by Shinde has not merged with any other party in the legislative assembly or formed any new political party as contemplated under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution or formed Therefore, even if it is assumed that the the rebel group has 2/3rd strength of the Legislature party, it would be hit be defection and would not receive the protection envisaged in para 4 of Tenth schedule."The President of the Shiv Sena (Shri Uddhav Thackeray) had publicly and admittedly not aligned/supported the BJP. In these circumstances, the satisfaction of the Governor for the purpose of calling upon Respondent No. 4 to be the Chief Minister as the head of 39 rebel MLAs of Shiv Sena (which is not endorsed by the Shiv Sena Political Party) is by itself ex facie unconstitutional. The Constitution prohibits recognition of rebel MLAs of a political party under Tenth Schedule, and the action of the Governor legitimises what is expressly prohibited by the Constitution. The Governor has sought to recognise what the Constitution prohibits," the plea said..The Governor is also not empowered under law to recognise 'Who is the Shiv Sena” since that falls within the domain of the Election Commission, the plea added.