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Supreme Court has questioned the use of ‘legislative majority’ test by Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar while deciding that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction was the real Shiv Sena, and summoned the original records relating to the disqualification row from the speaker’s office.
Hearing a plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction against the speaker’s order declaring the Shinde bloc as the ‘real political party’ after the split in the Shiv Sena in June 2022, the top court also took note of the claim of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the group led by the chief minister, about ‘forgery’ in some relevant documents.
“The original records shall be summoned from the office of the adjudicating authority (speaker),” said the bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, and fixed the Thackeray faction’s plea for hearing on April 8.
The bench said it was keeping open the issue of maintainability of the petition of the Thackeray faction.
The top court, which had issued notice on the Thackeray group’s petition on January 22, asked Shinde and his MLAs to file a response positively on or before April 1.
The speaker had, in an order on January 10, declared the Shiv Sena bloc led by Shinde as the ‘real political party’ after the split in June 2022.
He had also rejected the Thackeray faction’s plea to disqualify 16 MLAs of the ruling camp, including Shinde.
The bench took note of the submissions of senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the Thackeray group, that there was a distinction between ‘legislative majority and organisational majority’ post defection.
The senior lawyer said there was a judgement which held that legislative majority post defection would not necessarily mean real majority.
Questioning the use of test of ‘legislative majority’ to ascertain which faction was the real party, the CJI referred to the order of the speaker and said, “Is this not contrary to the judgment? The whole submission is contrary to the judgment of our court.”
“See para… the speaker said which faction is the real political party’ is discernible from the legislative majority which existed when the rival factions emerged’. Is it not contrary to the judgment?” the CJI asked.
Salve opposed the Thackeray group’s petition and said the Bombay high court be allowed to adjudicate the issue as the Shinde faction has moved there assailing a part of the speaker’s order which refused to disqualify certain MLAs of the Thackeray faction.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, also appearing for the Shinde faction, referred to a recent judgement and said the high court be allowed to hear and decide it.
At the outset, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who along with Singhvi appeared for the Thackeray group, said time was of the essence in the matter as the term of the assembly was expiring in October, and hence, remanding the case to the high court would render the whole issue ‘infructuous’.
Salve questioned the authenticity of some documents and referred to the resolution of June, 2022 by which Shinde was removed as the leader of the Shiv Sena legislature party.
He said the documents produced by the Thackeray group were fabricated and referred to alleged discrepancies in the resolution.
This led the bench to order summoning of records from the office of the speaker.
The court said it will hear the final arguments on April 8 and decide the issues including the maintainability of the plea of the Thackeray faction.
