Breaking: Supreme Court Asks Maharashtra Speaker Not To Proceed With Disqualification Of MLAs
|The Supreme Court today asked the Speaker of Maharashtra not to proceed with disqualification proceedings of the Shiv Sena MLAs. The matter was mentioned before the Bench of Chief Justice N. V. Ramana as the batch of cases was not listed today despited direction of the vacation bench for listing today.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter and sought that disqualification not be proceeded with until the matters are listed and heard.
The Bench of the Chief Justice, Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Hima Kohli asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to inform the Speaker not to proceed with the disqualification. The Court also said that the matter may not be listed tomorrow since a Bench for hearing the matter is yet to be constituted.
The Supreme Court's vacation bench comprising of Justice Surya Kant and Justice J. B. Pardiwala had on the 29th June hearing refused to stay the floor test on the petition filed by the Shiv Sena Chief Whip Sunil Prabhu, which was held on the 30th June as per the directions of the Governor of Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court had also in the same hearing allowed the applications filed by MLAs Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik, who are in judicial custody, to cast their vote in the floor test.
The Apex Court had on 27th June hearing stayed the disqualification proceedings against the rebel MLAs of Shiv Sena before the Deputy Speaker and had sought the responses of the State Government and the other Respondent Parties.
Maharashtra Political Crisis-Timeline
After the Maharashtra Legislative Council Elections on 20th June, a senior Shiv Sena leader, Eknath Shinde disappeared and could not be contacted. On 21st June Uddhav Thackeray called a meeting with all his MLAs but 11 MLAs were unreachable. The 11 MLAs led by Eknath Shinde flew to Surat. In order to prevent further loss of MLAs, Shiv Sena housed their MLAs in various hotels of Mumbai.
Shinde later claimed that he had the support of nearly 40 MLAs and demanded Thackeray to break the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance. On 22nd June Thackeray declared that he is ready to step down as the leader of alliance and from the post of Chief Minister.
On 24th June Shiv Sena filed an application against the rebel MLAs and demanded the Deputy Speaker to disqualify the 16 MLAs. A no confidence motion was also moved against the Deputy Speaker by two independent MLAs but was rejected. On 26th June, Shinde moved a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the move to disqualify the rebel MLAs and on 27th June Supreme Court deferred the hearing for 11th July seeking replies from the Respondent Parties.
On 28th June Devendra Fadnavis met with Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, who on 29th ordered for a floor test to be conducted on 30th June. The order of the Governor was challenged before the Supreme Court on the same day but the Supreme Court refused to interfere with that order.
On 30th June, the floor test was conducted in which Shinde and Fadnavis staked the claim to form the government and Eknath Shinde was declared the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.