Supreme Court directs Maharashtra speaker to defer disqualification proceedings

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Maharashtra assembly speaker to defer fratricidal disqualification proceedings initiated by rival Shiv Sena factions against each other after Ekknath Shinde-led 39 MLAs rebelled to dismantle the Uddhav Thackeray-headed MVA government.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal and Devadatt Kamat told a bench of chief justice N V Ramana and justices Krishna Murari and Him Kohli that the speaker should be restrained from taking a decision on the disqualification petitions pending before him and conceded that no MLA from either faction of Sena should be disqualified till the SC decided multiple petitions filed by both sides.
Finding solicitor general Tushar Mehta appearing for the Maharashtra governor, the CJI told him to convey to the speaker not to proceed with the disqualification proceedings pending before him till further orders.
Though the pending petitions were scheduled to be listed on Monday for detailed hearing as per the orders of a vacation bench headed by Justice Surya Kant, the CJI-led bench said it would take some time to assign the bunch of petitions related to the Maharashtra political imbroglio to an appropriate bench.
The first to approach the SC were Eknath Shinde and 16 of the 39 rebel MLAs who were given disqualification notices when they refused to attend Sena’s meet after rebelling against Thackeray’s leadership and moving to a ‘safe location’ in Guwahati.
The vacation bench had asked the then deputy speaker not to proceed with the disqualification proceedings and allowed the trust vote to take place. Repeated petitions were filed by the Thackeray-led faction through its former chief whip Sunil Prabhu seeking disqualification of the rebel MLAs.
It was followed by a fresh petition by the Thakeray faction through Subhash Desai, challenging the governor’s decision to invite Shinde to form the government after he claimed support of BJP. Many applications seeking various reliefs too have been filed to supplement the pleadings in the pending petitions. As and when an SC bench takes up the matters, it would deal with a mountain of papers.