Maharashtra: Supreme Court refers Sena vs Sena to larger Constitution bench

On Thursday, the Supreme Court asked a larger bench to review its ruling from 2016 in the Nabam Rebia case.The Supreme Court delivering the judgement in the case of the 16 MLAs who left the Shiv Sena, which was then led by Uddhav Thackeray, in June 2022. Under the nation’s anti-defection law, the Thackeray faction demanded the MLAs’ disqualification. According to the Nabam Rebia ruling, Speakers are not permitted to issue notifications of disqualification while a notice of removal is pending.

The Supreme Court also said the Speaker if he finds that the motion for his removal is not as per procedure, then he could proceed with the petitions seeking disqualification of the MLAs.The apex court held that the Speaker’s decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale (Eknath Shinde) as the whip of the Shiv Sena party was illegal.

The five-judge bench delivered the judgment on a batch of cross-petitions filed by Uddhav Thackeray and chief minister M Eknath Shinde factions on the Maharashtra political crisis.The former -governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s decision to invite Shinde to form the government along with the Bharatiya Janata Party after Thackeray chose to resign.The court had earlier reserved the order after all the parties concluded their arguments.The lawyer appearing for the Uddhav Thackeray camp had said that the illegal act of the Maharashtra Governor is a prior pending sub judice challenge before the trust vote.Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Uddhav Thackeray’s camp had said that the Governor cannot call for a trust vote based on a faction as calling for a trust vote is based on alliances.

During the hearing, the Court had observed that Governor should not enter into any area which precipitates the fall of a government and called Maharashtra’s political crisis a “serious issue for democracy”.