Supreme Court issues notice to Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Uddhav Thackeray faction's petition

livemint.com:

Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena challenging the order of Maharashtra Speaker on the dismissal of disqualification pleas against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde faction MLAs. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the Thackeray faction, and sought response of the chief minister and other MLAs in two weeks.

At the outset, the top court said the plea can be heard by the Bombay High Court as well. The senior lawyers for the Thackeray faction, however, opposed the idea and said the top court is more equipped to handle the case.

Thackeray faction also challenged the order of Maharashtra Speaker to recognise the Eknath Shinde faction as the 'real Shiv Sena' after its split in June 2022. The Speaker's decision came on January 10, nearly two years after Thackeray's camp moved disqualification petitions against Shinde and his supporting legislators under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution.

Approaching the apex court against the Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narwekar's decision to dismiss the disqualification petitions against Shinde and 38 "rebel" Shiv Sena legislators, the Thackeray faction said the decision was a "colourable" exercise of power based on "extraneous and irrelevant" considerations. Earlier, the top court had asked the Speaker to decide expeditiously the disqualification petitions pending before him.

The disqualification petitions against the rebel MLAs were filed by Sunil Prabhu, the Shiv Sena party Whip appointed by Uddhav Thackeray, on 23 June 2022, after the MLAs revolted against Thackeray. In May last year, 11 five-judge Constitution bench