Supreme Court raps Eknath Shinde camp for its U-turn on disqualification plea
The Supreme Court strongly rejected suggestions from rebel Sena MLAs, who were saved from disqualification prior to the fall of the MVA government due to SC intervention, that the Maharashtra assembly speaker, not the apex court, should decide on the disqualification issue.
The Supreme Court strongly rejected suggestions from rebel Sena MLAs, who were saved from disqualification prior to the fall of the MVA government due to SC intervention, that the Maharashtra assembly speaker, not the apex court, should decide on the disqualification issue.
Harish Salve, counsel for the Eknath Shinde faction, told a bench of CJI NV Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli that cross-disqualification petitions filed against almost all Sena MLAs should be decided by the speaker because the Supreme Court should not be the first forum of adjudication.
The bench said, “You (the rebels) came to the court first and were protected. Entertaining that petition is contrary to the SC judgment in the Karnataka case where we had ruled that it is the speaker who should decide such issues. Now that you have garnered a majority and have elected your MLA as speaker, you want the issues to be decided by the speaker.”
Appearing for the Thackeray-faction, advocate Kapil Sibal said, “The rebel MLAs stand disqualified as by not attending legislature party meetings, they have given up membership of the party. Even if they have two-third MLAs, they couldn’t be saved from disqualification if they had neither floated a separate party or merged with another party. The Tenth Schedule was enacted to stop defection. But it is now used to instigate, indulge and legitimise defections.”