Maharashtra Politics case: Supreme Court says issue of reference to larger bench to reexamine Nabam Rebia will be decided along with merits

A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Friday held that the request for reference of the case concerning the 2022 Maharashtra political crisis to a larger bench so as to re-examine the apex court's 2016 judgment in Nabam Rebia v. Deputy Speaker, will be heard along with the merits of the case and not separately [Subhash Desai vs Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra & Ors].The bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha passed the order on a batch of cases filed by rival factions of the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde in relation to the political crisis of 2022 which had led to a change in power in the Western State."Issue of reference cannot be decided in isolation without facts of the case. Issue of reference will be decided only with merits of the case," the Court said.It, therefore, directed that the matter be listed for hearing on merits of the case will be on February 21, Tuesday at 10:30 amThe bench had reserved its verdict on the point of reference yesterday. In Nabam Rebia case, the Supreme Court had held that Speaker of an assembly cannot initiate disqualification proceedings against Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) when a resolution seeking the speaker's removal is pending.In its order today, the Court noted the diverse opinions by different judges on the Nabam Rebia judgment. "In Nabam Rebia, three judgments were delivered by the constitution bench. The opinion of Justice JS khehar and Justice Dipak Misra held that speaker should stay hands when notice to disqualify him is moved. Justice Madan Lokur held that the views expressed by Justice Khehar and Mishra does not arise in those appeals," the top court noted.It, therefore, said that the issue of reference cannot be decided isolated from the facts of the matter and, therefore, decided to hear it along with merits..The Maharashtra case has its genesis in the split of the Shiv Sena political party into two factions, one led by Thackeray and the other by Shinde, who went on to replace Thackeray as Maharashtra's Chief Minister after the split.Rebel MLAs of the Shinde faction had 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 had 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 had given the go-ahead to a floor test called for by then 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 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.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.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.In Wednesday'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.Follow our coverage of the case here.