Inordinate Delay: SC Issues Directions to Maharashtra Speaker to Complete Disqualification Proceedings
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 30: Irked over the Maharashtra state Assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar’s continuous delay in hearing the disqualification petitions following the splits in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party, the Supreme Court on Monday fixed the time limits for completing the procedures in the next three months.
A three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud directed the speaker that he must complete the procedures and decide on the disqualification petitions filed by the rival factions of the Shiv Sena by December 31 and of the rival factions of the NCP by January 31, 2024.
Monday’s development followed the apex court having earlier asked the Speaker thrice to fix time-frame for completing the hearings and finalise the disqualification issues at the earliest and refrained from issuing any directions on the matter but Mr Narwekar has so far refused to decide the time line forcing the Sena faction led by the former chief minister Udhhav Thackeray to rush back to the Supreme Court repeatedly to ensure that the issue was not dragged on till the next Maharashtra Assembly elections due in November, next year, making the disqualification issue infructuous.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed Mr Narwekar to decide disqualification petitions filed under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) of the Constitution against the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde camp in the Shiv Sena dispute by December 31, 2023, and the breakaway faction of the NCP headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar by January 31, 2024.
“So we are giving the Speaker two months to decide the disqualification petitions in the Shiv Sena case and a month more in the Nationalist Congress Party case. That is fair. It is reasonable time,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed the lawyers on both sides.
The Chief Justice said the need to bind the Speaker to deadlines had come after giving him repeated opportunities to conclude the disqualification proceedings. The court took matters into its hands after the Secretary, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Secretariat, filed an affidavit that the Speaker could only decide by February 29, 2024.
“We do not want this to creep into the next election schedule… The proceedings cannot wrangle on until the next elections are announced. This has to come to an end within a fixed date,” Chief Justice Chandrachud responded firmly to the affidavit during the hearing.
He noted that a Constitution Bench had directed the Speaker in May to conclude and pronounce the final orders in the Shiv Sena case. “Our Constitution Bench judgment was in May 2023. The incident [Shiv Sena split] happened in 2022,” Chief Justice Chandrachud pointed out the delay.
There are 34 disqualification petitions pending before the Speaker in the Shiv Sena case and nine in the NCP matter. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the court to give the Speaker time till January 31, 2024, taking into account the intervening Deepavali holidays and the Assembly’s shift to Nagpur for the 15-day Winter Session in December.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A.M. Singhvi, appearing for the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar loyalist camps which were part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government overthrown by the Eknath Shinde-BJP alliance in the State, said any ambiguity in the deadline or any further delay would “subvert the anti-defection proceedings.” Mr Singhvi said the court ought to take into consideration the past months the Speaker had to decide the case.
Chief Justice Chandrachud made it clear in the order that “procedural wrangling” should not delay the Tenth Schedule hearings in both cases. In an earlier hearing in October, the court had slammed Mr Narwekar for reducing the anti-defection proceedings to a “charade”, saying that he cannot “merrily” defer hearings and has to decide before the next elections.
The Speaker had disregarded the court’s order on September 18 to prepare a time-schedule to complete the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the Shinde camp. The Bench had at the time given Mr. Narwekar a week to prepare the timeline and file it before the Supreme Court.
Following the fall of Maha Vikas Aghadi government last year, the two Shiv Sena factions led by Shinde and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray had filed a batch of disqualification pleas against each other’s MLAs.
On July 2, Ajit Pawar was appointed as the deputy chief minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government. The NCP faction led by his uncle and party chief Sharad Pawar then filed a disqualification petition against him and eight MLAs who supported him. In September, the Ajit Pawar-led faction also filed disqualification petitions against 10 MLAs from the rival group.
On May 11, a five-judge bench had directed Narwekar, the Maharashtra Speaker, to hear and decide the disqualification petitions against the Shiv Sena MLAs within a “reasonable time.” However, Narwekar did not go ahead with the proceedings despite the top court’s direction. Later similar directions from the apex court also failed to elicit any positive response from the speaker.
On October 17, the court gave Narwekar a final opportunity to set up a realistic timeframe to decide the disqualification petitions against Shinde and the other Shiv Sena MLAs. It had told him not to make the proceedings “a charade” and said that he needed to take a decision before the next Assembly election.
