Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 1: In what could come as a major relief for the former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, the Supreme Court has remarked that any member of a legislature defying the whip of the party on the floor of the House could attract disqualification.
Even as the hearing before a five-judge constitution bench in the Maharashtra’s “Sena Vs Sena” case is continuing in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the remarks by the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud interjecting during the arguments from the Eknath Shinde faction indicated a major relief for the faction led by Thackeray.
“Members of a House are bound by the whip and any section of MLAs within a political party which is part of a ruling coalition saying they don’t want to go with the alliance will attract disqualification, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.
The remark was in keeping with Thackeray faction’s case that a majority of the Shinde faction had defied the party whip to vote for the then three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government headed by Uddhav Thackeray and had therefore attracted disqualification from the membership of the House. If the argument was accepted by the apex court, the Shinde faction could lose the majority in the then Shiv Sena legislature party and also weaken the Election Commission of India’s order recognising the Shinde faction as the “real Shiv Sena” on the basis of the majority support in the House and giving it the name and the party symbol of “bow and arrow” depriving the Thackeray faction.
“Once a government is formed, it is not open to any group of MLAs to say that we don’t want to go with this alliance. It is not open to any one segment of a political party to say we don’t want to go with this alliance. That will ipso facto attract the disqualification provisions. You are bound by the whip. You are bound to vote with your party so long as you are in the legislature, unless there is a merger,” Chandrachud presiding over the five-judge constitution bench said while hearing petitions filed in the wake of last year’s political crisis in Maharashtra precipitated by a division in the Shiv Sena.
“So, on the one hand, none of them can say to the Governor that we don’t want to go with the alliance. The answer is very simple. You don’t want to go with an alliance? Then go to your leader and take a decision in the political party outside. So long as you are a member of the House, you are bound by discipline of the House. So you have to vote with your political party,” the CJI said as Senior Advocate N K Kaul appearing for the Eknath Shinde faction presented his case.
Arguing against the CJI’s remarks, Kaul told the bench, also comprising Justices M R Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli, and P S Narasimha, that there were “two political whips appointed on the same day. We are following the mandate of the party. The question is whether my political whip or their political whip is the actual whip. The faction, which has been now recognised officially, had the majority in the political party then. They can’t presume and say that we have incurred an ex facie disqualification. There is an overwhelming discontent in the cadre of the party and didn’t want to continue with the alliance”.
Kaul argued that given the rebellion by the MLAs, ordering the floor test was the appropriate thing for the Governor to do. However, the CJI said it would have been so if it was a case where some political parties had pulled out of a coalition. The CJI added that accepting the position that Kaul is advocating would lead to radical results. The arguments remained inconclusive and will continue.
The apex court’s remarks has come even as Shinde in a bid to tightening his grip over the party recognised by the ECI recommended to the chairman of the Maharashtra legislative council on Wednesday to change the chief whip, who currently belonged to the Thackeray faction, to be replaced by a leader from his faction.
