Shiv Sena Row: SC Agrees to Consider UBT Faction’s Plea against Maha Speaker’s Order

The Supreme Court on Monday has agreed to consider listing a plea filed  by the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging the order of Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, who declared the Shiv Sena bloc led by Eknath Shinde as the “real political party” following its split in June 2022.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra acknowledged the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Thackeray faction, stating that the plea, scheduled for Monday, had not been addressed. “We will see it,” remarked the CJI.

On January 22, the top court had issued notices to Chief Minister Shinde and other lawmakers of his group in response to the Thackeray faction’s plea challenging the speaker’s order. The court had directed the listing of the plea after two weeks. The Thackeray faction alleges that Shinde has “unconstitutionally usurped power” and is leading an “unconstitutional government.”

In the order passed on January 10, Speaker Narwekar had also dismissed the Thackeray faction’s plea to disqualify 16 MLAs from the ruling camp, including Shinde. Contesting the Speaker’s orders, the Thackeray faction contends that they are “patently unlawful and perverse” and assert that instead of penalizing the act of defection, the orders reward the defectors by recognizing them as the political party.