Maharashtra Politics case: Supreme Court reserves verdict on reference to larger bench for re-examining Nabam Rebia judgment

The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on whether the cases filed by rival factions of the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde in relation to the 2022 Maharashtra political crisis should be referred to a larger bench to reconsider the Court's 2016 judgment in Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker [Subhash Desai vs Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra & Ors]. .The Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha heard arguments on whether Nabam Rebia would require reconsideration, before proceeding to reserve its verdict on that aspect. ."Arguments addressed only on the question of Nabam Rebia being referred to a larger bench. Orders reserved," the Court recorded after today's hearing. .During the hearing today, Chief Justice Chandrachud observed that one of the aspects to be considered is whether the Nabam Rebia judgment was applicable at all, to the case at hand."In our case, what happens is, the Speaker created problem for himself, may be due to political exigency.. he said on 25th that time (is given) till 27th and Supreme Court said time (is) extended to 12th July. Meanwhile, trust vote happens and Uddhav Thackeray. So, what could have happened to the party was never tested.. The resignation of the Chief Minister (Thackeray) obviated the floor test.. so the voting pattern was not revealed.. so does Nabam Rebia arise? .. Of course, interesting proposition... but can the court venture into this area without facts? ... Speaker's resolution was not tested in the house and voting pattern did not emerge", he orally observed.Commenting on the allegations at play in the case, the Court was also prompted to remark that,"10th schedule (of Constitution, dealing with defection) has been internalized by political establishments. it is like a chess board everyone knows what will be the next step..".Senior Advocates Mahesh Jethmalani, Maninder Singh and Siddharth Bhatnagar argued for the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and certain Members of the Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Senior Advocates Harish Salve and Neeraj Kishan Kaul, along with advocates Chirag Shah, Utsav Trivedi, Himanshu Sachdeva, Manini Roy and Piyush Tiwari also represented the Shinde faction.Senior counsel Jethmalani and Singh argued today that there was no need to reconsider the correctness of the Nabam Rebia judgment. ."There is a feeling among your lordship that Nabam Rebia was wrong on the period of time from when speaker should stay his hands.... … On June 28, the Governor ordered the floor test.. Where is the prejudice to the speaker to exercise his power of disqualification? The top court had held that Governor's floor test will not prejudice Speaker's power to decide on disqualification … On June 29 he consciously resigned knowing that he did not have majority. This was even before the floor test," Jethmalani submitted. ."No reference needed is writ large in the Constitutional scheme as it existed before the 55th Constitutional amendment", Singh added. .Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and AM Singhvi represented the Uddhay Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, the Maha Vikas Agadhi..Sibal urged the Court to interpret the 10th Schedule of the Constitution in such a way that it cannot be misused to topple governments. "This is not about today, but it is about tomorrow. These issues will arise time and again and governments will be toppled and this will happen in a democracy. An elected government must continue till disqualification petitions are decided. If disqualified, this court can protect. Please do not allow 10th schedule to topple the governments. It is far too serious .. . It is not just a narrow interpretation," Sibal argued. In connection with this contention, he also made a reference political defections that took place last year in Goa. "Five people in Goa... Two or three was taken over by another party and government falls. Argument is under principle of merger since they have merged with another party... Who is that? Congress party remains.. only the legislators merged... We are allowing manipulations within legislative parties to topple governments.. This cannot be allowed," he argued. .Meanwhile, Singhvi submitted that the Court should not distinguish the case of Nabam Rebia from the present case. "Distinguishing Nabam Rebia will generate future litigation than solve any problem. In binary sense, either this Court agrees or refers it", he said. .Today was the third consecutive day of arguments in the case.The case has its genesis in the split of the Shiv Sena political party into two factions, one led by Uddhav Thackeray and the other led by Eknath Shinde, who went on to replace Thackeray as Maharashtra's Chief Minister after the split. Rebel MLAs of the Shinde faction received disqualification notices from the then Deputy Speaker for acting against the party whip while voting during the Member of Legislative Council (MLC) elections in the State.The Supreme Court was called to consider whether rebel Members should be disqualified. On June 27, 2022, the Court granted interim relief to Shinde and his rebel group of MLAs by extending the time to file responses to the disqualification notices sent by the Deputy Speaker, till July 12. Subsequently, the Court on June 29 also gave the go-ahead to a floor test called for by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.This led to the fall of the Thackeray government, following which Shinde took oath as Chief Minister with the backing of the BJP, which is the single largest party in the House.The Thackeray camp, meanwhile, filed various petitions before the top court. One of the petitions has challenged the summoning of the Assembly by the Governor of Maharashtra for conducting the floor test.Another petition challenged the order of the then newly-appointed Speaker removing Ajay Chaudhary and Sunil Prabhu from the posts of leader as well as Chief Whip of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party, respectively.Further the top Court was also called to decide on which faction of the split party had rights over the Shiv Sena's bow-and-arrow symbol.The matter was eventually referred to a Constitution Bench by a Bench headed by then CJI NV Ramana in August last year. Final hearings in these petitions began earlier this week. In yesterday's hearing, the Supreme Court queried whether its Constitution Bench decision in Nabam Rebia, concerning the power of the Deputy Speaker to initiate disqualification proceedings, can be tweaked by another five-judge bench.On Tuesday, Sibal had voiced a note of protest that while the Court takes years to decide on election cases concerning some States, it sits on a day-to-day basis to discuss such matters for other States..Follow our extensive coverage of the saga here. [Follow our live-coverage of today's hearing]