Supreme Court Agrees To List Plea Filed By 14 Shiv Sena MLAs Of Uddhav Camp Against Disqualification Proceedings On July 20

The new writ petition was mentioned before the bench of CJI NV Ramana, Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli by Senior Advocate Devdat Kamat.

Urging the bench to list the petitions along with the pleas already pending before the court, Senior Counsel said, "Maharashtra matters are listed on Wednesday. Request for Tagging the same along with them."

Acceding to the request made by the Senior Counsel, CJI said, "Okay tag with it."

The petitions related to the crisis which will be heard on July 20 are:

• Petition preferred by rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde (now the Chief Minister) challenging the disqualification notices issued by the Deputy Speaker and plea filed by Bharat Gogawale and 14 other Shiv Sena MLA's seeking to restrain the Deputy Speaker from taking any action in the disqualification petition until the resolution for removal of Deputy Speaker is decided. On June 27, the division bench of Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala had extended the time for the rebel MLAs to file written responses to the Deputy Speaker's disqualification notice till July 12.
• Petition filed by Shiv Sena Chief Whip Sunil Prabhu challenging the Maharashtra Governor's direction to the Chief Minister to prove majority of Maha Vikas Aghadi Government.
• Petition filed by Sunil Prabhu, the whip appointed by Uddhav Thackeray-led group, challenging the action of the newly elected Maharashtra Assembly Speaker recognising the whip nominated by the Eknath Shinde group as the Chief Whip of Shiv Sena.
• Petition preferred by Mr. Subhash Desai, the General Secretary of the Shiv Sena assailing the decision of the Maharashtra Governor to invite Eknath Shinde to be the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and challenged the further proceedings of the State's Legislative Assembly held on 03.07.2022 and 04.07.2022 as 'illegal'.

On July 11, 2022 the CJI had asked the Speaker to keep in abeyance the disqualification proceedings against the MLAs - initiated by both Shinde and Thackeray groups against MLAs of the rival groups - till further orders.