The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict tomorrow on a slew of petitions related to last year’s Maharashtra political turmoil, which resulted in Eknath Shinde taking over as Chief Minister from Uddhav Thackeray following a Shiv Sena split.
A five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha had heard the case.
The following arguments were raised during the course of hearings:
- Validity of former Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s decision to ask former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to face a floor test.
- Validity of the Governor’s decision to ask rebel faction leader Eknath Shinde to take the oath as Chief Minister.
- The Speaker’s power to act under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution and whether he could be barred from acting under anti-defection law if a notice seeking his removal from the office is pending.
- Which faction of a political party can claim to be the real political party in the case of a split among the political party’s MLAs (legislative wing)?
- Whether the 2016 Supreme Court judgement in the Nabam Rebia case (relating to the 2016 political crisis in Arunachal Pradesh) by a five-judge Constitution Bench, which ruled that a speaker is barred from acting under the Tenth Schedule to curb defection, should be revisited and referred to a seven-judge bench.
Towards the end of the hearing, the Court asked whether it could reinstate a Chief Minister who had resigned without having to face the floor test.
The Bench continued its line of questions regarding the Governor’s power to convene a floor test, observing, “What if we come to the conclusion that the Governor’s exercise of power was not correct? Does Uddhav Thackeray become CM? But he resigned, no? It’s like telling the Court to reinstate a government that has resigned.”
While attempting to restore the status quo ante, the Thackeray faction told the Court that anything resulting from an illegal act must be removed and cannot persist.
Previously, Senior Advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, representing the Shinde camp, had argued that the terms ‘political party’ and ‘legislative party’ are interchangeable. As a result, the Thackeray camp’s claim that factions reflect a legislative party rather than a political party is a misconception.
Kaul remarked, in reference to the creation of a rival faction inside the Shiv Sena, that “dissent is the hallmark of democracy.”
The case stems from the Shiv Sena’s split into two groups, one led by Thackeray and the other by Shinde, who went on to replace Thackeray as Maharashtra’s Chief Minister in June 2022.
The Election Commission (EC) recognized the Shinde group as the true Shiv Sena on February 17, this year, based on the majority in the Maharashtra Assembly. The Shinde group has 40 Assembly MLAs against the Thackeray faction’s 15.
