Shiv Sena row: SC says Maha speaker cannot defeat orders of apex court

New Delhi: The delay in deciding the disqualification petitions against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Shiv Sena MLAs loyal to him Friday came under strict scrutiny by the Supreme Court which came down hard on the Maharashtra assembly speaker, saying the proceedings cannot be a “charade” and he cannot defeat its orders.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Speaker Rahul Narwekar, to apprise it about the timeline for deciding the petitions on Tuesday, saying it will pass a “peremptory order” if it is not satisfied.

“Somebody has to advise the (assembly) speaker. He cannot defeat the orders of the Supreme Court. What kind of time schedule he is prescribing?…This (disqualification proceedings) is a summary procedure. Last time, we thought, better sense will prevail and had asked him to lay down a time schedule…,” said the bench.

The idea of laying down the time schedule was not to “indefinitely delay” the hearing on the disqualification proceedings, the court said.

A visibly irked CJI said a decision on disqualification pleas has to be taken before the next assembly elections or the whole process will become infructuous. The next state assembly polls will likely be held around September-October 2024.

“The decision has to be taken well before the next elections and this cannot go on merrily to render the whole process infructuous,” the bench said.

Voicing concern over non-adherence to its earlier order, the apex court said nothing has moved in the matter since June and asked the government’s top law officer to “advise the speaker”, saying “he needs assistance which is obvious”.

The bench said the speaker must give the impression that he was taking the matter seriously.

“Since June, there has been no action in the matter. What has happened in this case?. Nothing! This cannot become a charade. There has to be a hearing (before the speaker),” the bench said.

Referring to the court’s earlier orders of issuing notices and seeking a timeline for adjudication of the petitions, the CJI said the apex court was concerned about its instructions not being followed by the speaker.

“I am concerned about maintaining the dignity of our court,” the CJI said.

The top court was hearing two petitions filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and the Sharad Pawar bloc of the NCP, seeking a direction to the speaker to expeditiously decide disqualification proceedings against some MLAS.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray faction, referred to the delay in the proceedings and alleged that now the party will have to lead evidence to show it is an aggrieved party and said a “farce” is going on.

He said notice on the plea was issued on July 14 and nothing effective has been done till date.

The senior lawyer said if the speaker declines to club the disqualification pleas, then each matter will have to be dealt with separately.

“The court will have to decide what is the responsibility of a tribunal (the speaker works as a tribunal for disqualification purposes) in the matter,” Sibal said.

Another senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi said on Thursday, the speaker spent four hours clubbing several disqualification petitions only because the matter was to come up before the top court.

The bench then said somebody has to advise the speaker as he cannot defeat the purpose of the apex court orders.

The solicitor general referred to the problems and cross claims filed with the speaker and said, “I was not expecting this court to hear what he (speaker) does day-to-day…”.

The speaker is an election tribunal for deciding such pleas and hence amenable to the jurisdiction of the top court, the bench said.

“We issued notice (on plea of the Thackeray faction) on 14 July. Thereafter, we passed an order on September 18. Now, seeing that the speaker has not taken any steps, we will be constrained to say that he must take a decision in two months,” the bench observed during the hearing.

The hearings before the tribunal should not be reduced to a charade and these are serious proceedings, it said.

The bench said it earlier did not fix the time schedule taking note of the respect of the officer (speaker) who is “an extension of legislative government”.”

“But if he doesn’t do it then we must hold them accountable,” the bench said, adding, “We pay deference to all branches of government. But the writ of this court has to run when we see that there is a failure of this court’s mandate.”

Earlier on September 18, the bench had directed the speaker to spell out the time table for adjudication of the disqualification petitions against Shinde and Shiv Sena MLAs owing allegiance to him who had tied up with the BJP to form a new government in June 2022.

The court had asked the solicitor general to apprise the bench of the time schedule to be fixed by the speaker for deciding the pleas for disqualification of 56 MLAs including lawmakers belonging to the Shinde faction.

The Thackeray faction had moved the apex court in July seeking direction to the state assembly speaker to expeditiously adjudicate the disqualification petitions in a time-bound manner.

The plea by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLA Sunil Prabhu, who as the chief whip of the undivided Shiv Sena had filed the disqualification petitions against Shinde and other MLAs in 2022, alleged Speaker Rahul Narwekar is deliberately delaying the adjudication despite the verdict of the apex court.

Later, a separate plea was filed by the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for a direction to the assembly speaker to expeditiously decide the disqualification petitions against deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and party MLAs loyal to him.