Uddhav Sena Moves Supreme Court Challenging Maharashtra Speaker's Refusal To Disqualify Eknath Shinde Group

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) has approached the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Maharashtra Speaker to recognize Eknath Shinde group as the real Shiv Sena and refusing to disqualify the members of Shinde faction for defection as per the tenth schedule of the Constitution.

It was on January 10 that Speaker Rahul Narwekar pronounced the verdict rejecting the petitions filed by Uddhav faction seeking to disqualify Eknath Shinde and his supporting MLAs. The Speaker also dismissed the disqualification petitions filed by Shinde faction against Uddhav group.

In a related development, the Shinde Sena has approached the Bombay High Court challenging the Speaker's decision to disqualify members of the Uddhav group.

Speaker said Shinde faction had an overwhelming majority of 37 of 55 MLAs when rival factions emerged and that Shinde was validly appointed as leader of the party. He said the will of "Party pakshapramukh" at the time, Uddhav, cannot be said to be the will of the political party. This is to enable intra-party dissent. He added that Uddhav Thackeray had no power to remove Eknath Shinde as the party leader.

While refusing to disqualify the 40 members from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction on the petitions filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction, Speaker reasoned that Sunil Prabhu had ceased to be the authorised whip of the party on June 21 and had no authority to call a meeting of the party. Therefore, the Shinde-faction MLAs cannot be disqualified for having violated the said whip. Speaker further said that Shinde faction not attending the meeting can at the most be termed as an act of dissent within the party and it would be protected by freedom of speech and expression.

The Supreme Court had initially set a deadline of December 31, 2023, for the Speaker to decide the petitions under the tenth schedule of the Constitution; the court later extended the deadline to January 10, 2024. The SC expressed strong dissatisfaction at the Speaker's delay in the adjudication, observing “the dignity of this court's judgement should be maintained.”