The Supreme Court on Friday granted 10 more days to Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar to decide the cross-petitions filed by the rival factions of the Shiv Sena demanding the disqualification of each other’s MLAs, including the disqualification of CM Eknath Shinde. The apex court had previously directed the speaker to decide on the disqualification pleas by December 31.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud passed an interim application filed by Narvekar seeking an extension of time to decide on the pleas, till January 21.
On October 30, during the last hearing, the top court had vehemently refused to grant time beyond December 31 to the speaker, who had filed an affidavit seeking permission until February 29, 2024, to announce his verdict.
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Besides, the SC had also asked Narvekar to decide on the disqualification pleas related to two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on or before January 31, 2024.
On Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the speaker, submitted that there are documents of over 2 lakh pages to be examined by Narvekar, and he is conducting proceedings even during the Winter Session of the Assembly held in Nagpur, which began on December 7 and will go until December 20.
Narvekar, in his interim application, submitted that after the Winter Session gets over on December 20, the Legislature Secretariat has to move from Nagpur to Mumbai, which takes about two to three days. ‘Hence, even if the hearing of the disqualification petitions is over on December 22, 2023, the Speaker would not be able to peruse the papers and work on the judgments before December 26, 2023.’
Narvekar claimed that there are a total of 34 petitions and 133 respondents, as per which 56 MLAs are sought to be disqualified under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. There are 34 petitions, each running into approximately 2,821 pages, to which 133 respondents have filed separate replies running into nearly 2.71 lakh pages. Narvekar also added that there are witnesses for and on behalf of some petitioners and respondents in the disqualification petitions and cross-examinations, which run into several pages. Narvekar claims he has sought reasonable time to conduct the hearing and review the documents before making any decision.
It is interesting to note that the SC had given the ball to the speaker on May 11 and asked the speaker to announce his judgment in a reasonable time. Since then, the SC has multiple times slammed the speaker for his delay in announcing the verdict. Eventually, the SC was compelled to provide a deadline to the speaker on October 30, and now the SC has extended that too.
Viewers, even if CM Shinde gets disqualified, he can continue to remain CM. Let me tell you how. ‘Mr. Shinde will not get disqualified. Even in the unlikely event that does happen, we will get him elected to the Legislative Council, and he will retain the CM’s post,’ Fadnavis had said speaking to a regional news channel.
The question also arises whether the speaker will be able to give his judgment on the NCP Vs NCP before January 31st or will he seek more time?
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