Supreme Court issues notice to Maharashtra speaker on plea for quick disposal of disqualification petitions against Shiv Sena MLAs

The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the speaker of the Maharashtra legislative assembly on a plea to expeditiously decide disqualification petitions pending against Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of the two factions of the Shiv Sena [Sunil Prabhu v. The Speaker, Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly].A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra issued notice returnable in two weeks..The plea by Sunil Prabhu, an MLA of the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the party, has been filed at a time when Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar and eight MLAs, including Praful Patel and Chhagan Bhujbal, have joined the Eknath Shinde faction.In his plea, Prabhu highlighted that a Supreme Court Constitution Bench had on May 11 this year, directed the Speaker to decide on the pending disqualification petitions within a reasonable period. However, no such step has yet been taken, he submitted. As per the plea, the constitutional requirement of fairness requires the Speaker to decide on the question of disqualification in an expeditious manner. Prabhu further contended that the Speaker’s inaction in deciding the disqualification proceedings "is an act of grave constitutional impropriety“..The Supreme Court's May 11 judgment came in a case that had its genesis in the split of the Shiv Sena political party into two factions. Shinde went on to replace Thackeray as Maharashtra's Chief Minister after the split in June 2022.Following the split, rebel MLAs of the Shinde faction received disqualification notices from the then Deputy Speaker for acting against the party whip while voting in 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, 2022, 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 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the single largest party in the House.Nearly a year later, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court headed by CJI DY Chandrachud held that Koshyari's decision to call for a floor test based on the request of 34 MLAs of the Eknath Shinde faction was incorrect. The Court held that Koshyari did not have enough objective material before him to conclude that the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had lost the confidence of the house.However, the Court had noted that the status quo could not be restored since Thackeray did not face the floor test, but chose to resign.All the same, the Court had directed the Speaker of the Maharashtra legislative assembly, Rahul Narwekar to decide on the pending disqualification petitions against MLAs belonging to Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray factions of Shiv Sena.