Supreme Court To Hear At 5 PM Sena's Plea Challenging Governor's Direction To Hold Floor Test

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear at tentatively 5 pm today, the plea of Shiv Sena chief whip Sunil Prabhu challenging the Maharashtra Governor's direction to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to hold a floor test in the Assembly on Thursday.

A vacation bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice J B Pardiwala took note of submissions of Senior Advocate A M Singhvi that an urgent hearing was needed in view of the decision taken by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari asking the MVA government to prove majority at 11 am on Thursday.

"We will keep at 5 pm. Please make sure that paper books are supplied by 3 pm to parties concerned," the Bench said.

Singhvi said the floor test cannot include names which are "stigmatised". "Floor test cannot involve illegal names. Votes that cannot be counted will be counted." Singhvi said.

Earlier, the Apex Court on June 27 had kept in abeyance the disqualification proceedings against rebel Shiv Sena MLAs before the Deputy Speaker of the state Assembly till July 11, and also sought responses from the state government and others on their pleas questioning the legality of notices seeking their disqualification.

The Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice J B Pardiwala had passed an order extending the time for filing replies to the disqualification notices issued by the Deputy Speaker to the rebel MLAs till 5.30 pm on July 12. The Deputy Speaker had given time only till 5.30 pm on Monday.