Maharashtra Speaker rules Shinde faction is real Shiv Sena; dismisses disqualification petitions against MLAs

Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narwekar on Wednesday ruled that the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena is the original Shiv Sena when the rival factions emerged back in June 2022..Hence, he dismissed the disqualification petitions filed against MLAs of the Shinde faction by the Uddhav Thackeray faction as well as the disqualification petitions filed by Shinde faction against Thackeray faction.Narwekar underlined that the Shinde faction had a majority of 37 of 55 MLAs when the rival factions emerged and as a result, Sunil Prabhu ceased to be the whip of the party. Further, he ruled that Bharat Gogavale was validly appointed as whip of the party and Eknath Shinde was validly appointed the leader.."Shinde faction had an overwhelming majority of 37 of 55 MLAs when rival factions emerged. Sunil Prabhu ceased to be the duly whip of the party since the rival faction emerged. Bharat Gogavale was validly appointed as whip of Shiv Sena Party and Eknath Shinde validly appointed as leader of the party," the Speaker said..Further, Narwekar held that Sunil Prabhu had no authority to call a meeting of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party (SSLP) and underlined that the WhatsApp message calling for the meeting was sent less than 12 hours in advance. "A perusal of the Whatsapp message shows that the said message was sent on 12.31 am for a meeting scheduled on 12.30 pm. None of the Shinde faction members were ever served the notice of the meeting. Their disqualification submission is liable to be rejected. The petitioner's case that they are liable to be disqualified must be rejected," he said.Further, the speaker ruled that not attending party meetings and voicing differences of opinion outside the house of legislature are matters of party.Such conduct can at the most be termed as act of dissent within the party and it would be protected by freedom of speech and expression."Non-attendance cannot be treated as conduct attracting disqualification," it was underlined..Accordingly, Narwekar refused to disqualify 40 members from the Ekanth Shinde faction of Shiv Sena. .Narwekar's verdict came on the 34 petitions filed by the two rival factions of Shiv Sena filed against each other seeking disqualification of 54 members of the Assembly. The petitions arose from a split in the party in June 2022. The allegation for seeking disqualification were that the members of both factions have not complied with the order of the Chief Whip of the party (persons responsible for organising party’s contribution to the parliamentary business)..The Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha in its judgment on the Maharashtra politics case ruled that the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly is the appropriate constitutional authority to decide the disqualification petitions within a reasonable period.It thereafter ordered the Speaker to decide on the matter by December 31, after allegations were made before the top court that the Speaker had been delaying the proceedings..The hearing in the case concluded on December 20. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde led faction of Shiv Sena claimed that his MLAs never received any whip as a whip was never issued. Hence, there was no violation of the whip. The faction also added that they were upset with the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, and that is why they withdrew from the alliance. This act of joining the government did not amount to a violation of the legislative rules inviting disqualification. Former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray led faction of Shiv Sena argued that the argued in return that when the MVA was formed, the rebels did not communicate their opposition. .Senior Advocates Mahesh Jethmalani, Anil Singh, Pradeep Sancheti and advocates Chirag Shah, Utsav Trivedi, Arpit Gupta, Himanshu Sachdeva, Manini Roy, Mughda Pande, Piyush Tiwari, and Shyam Jadhav appeared for Shinde faction..Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat and advocate Rohit Sharma appeared for Thackeray faction. .Senior Advocate Nikhil Sakhardande appeared for the independent MLAs.