The Supreme Court decided to hear a plea filed by the Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray faction contesting newly-elected Speaker Rahul Narvekar's decision to recognise a new chief whip belonging to the party's Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led group on July 11.
The petition will be heard on July 11 when the court reopens after the summer break, according to a vacation bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice J.K. Maheshwari.
Singhvi, who was representing Sunil Prabhu, who was serving as chief whip previous to Shinde's political coup, told the court that the Speaker had gone above his authority by recognising the chief whip nominated by the new administration, whose legitimacy was already being challenged in the Supreme Court.
“The Speaker has no jurisdiction to recognise whips. This is changing the status quo of proceedings before this court. The Speaker yesterday at the stroke of pen at midnight elected the whip,” senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the Thackeray group, said.
“I do not have the papers in front of me. Let all of this come up together on July 11,” Justice Banerjee said.
Three more petitions related to the Maharashtra political crisis are scheduled to be heard on the same day.
A letter provided by Speaker Rahul Narvekar's office reinstated Shinde as the Shiv Sena's legislative party leader and recognised the nomination of Bharat Gogawale from the Shinde camp as the Sena's top whip, displacing Sunil Prabhu from the Thackeray side.
Earlier on July 1, the Supreme Court decided to hear on July 11 the petition of Shiv Sena chief whip Sunil Prabhu seeking the suspension from the assembly of Shinde and 15 rebel MLAs who are facing disqualification proceedings.
Uddhav resigned as chief minister on June 27 when the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the floor test. According to the Shiv Sena, because there has been no formal merger of the breakaway unit with the BJP or any other party, the defectors should be disqualified under the anti-defection law.
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