New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday told Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide disqualification petitions with regard to Shiv Sena MLAs including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and pass final orders before December 31, 2023.
The top court said procedural wranglings should not be permitted to delay the proceedings under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law).
A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra also fixed a deadline of January 31, 2024 for deciding the pending disqualification petitions related to Nationalist Congress Party, including Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and eight others.
The court said it would schedule the matter in the first week of January for further considerations arising out of petitions filed by the Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar-led NCP.
The bench refused to grant more time to the Speaker in the matter.
On October 17, the court had asked the Speaker to fix a “realistic” time schedule to decide multiple disqualification petitions.
Resuming its hearings on pleas filed by Shiv Sena UBT’s Sunil Prabhu and NCP’s Jayant Patil against the delay, the bench said, “We have repeatedly granted time to Speaker to complete proceedings under the Tenth Schedule, now an affidavit has been filed by the Maharashtra legislative secretariat. It says there are two groups of disqualification petitions – one of Shiv Sena and one of NCP. The affidavit says the Secretariat will be closed during Diwali vacations and the winter session of assembly will be in Nagpur. We are of the view that procedural wranglings cannot lead to delay in decision of disqualification petitions.”
The bench said its concern is that these proceedings will continue until election is announced.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for the Thackeray faction, stressed that the Speaker is acting arbitrarily and delaying the proceedings.
The bench also orally said that time appears to be ripe for the court to hear the disqualification petitions.
The bench again asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Speaker, as to what was done, since the judgment was delivered in May 2023, for deciding the matter within a reasonable time.
(Published 30 October 2023, 08:14 IST)