In the latest hearing pertaining to the Sena row, the Supreme Court on March 7 questioned whether Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar contradicted a judgement of the SC’s Constitution Bench when selecting legislative majority as a criterion to declare that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction was the real Shiv Sena.
Highlighting that the Speaker said that “the ‘real’ political party is discernible from which faction held the legislative majority at the time of the emergence of the rival factions,” Chief Justice of India D.Y Chandrachud asked whether this was not “contrary to what we had laid down on May 11?” Chief Justice Chandrachud was heading a three-judge Bench hearing the issue.
When deciding the disqualification petitions filed against Mr. Shinde. Mr. Narwekar held on January 10 that Mr. Shinde’s faction was the true Shiv Sena, basing his decision on the fact that he had the legislative majority when the Shiv Sena split in June 2022.
A Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Chandrachud on May 11, 2023 said that the Speaker should not be influenced by who had the legislative majority while formulating a decision. (See more about the SC’s remarks in this case here.)
In the judgement, Chief Justice Chandrachud observed that “the Speaker must not base his decision as to which group constitutes the political party on a blind appreciation of which group possesses a majority in the Legislative Assembly.”
“This is not a game of numbers, but of something more,” he wrote. “The structure of leadership outside the Legislative Assembly is a consideration which is relevant to the determination of this issue”
The Bench had then drawn a distinction between the legislative wing of the party, made up of the MLAs, and the political wing, comprising the cadre. The question as to which faction was the real party should be answered after determining support from the political wing and not the strength of the legislative side, it held, noting that “a majority faction of the legislature party cannot be construed as the political party for the purposes of the Tenth Schedule.”
Read P.D.T Achary’s article on the same issue here.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, A.M. Singhvi and Devadutt Kamat submitted that the Speaker had erred in not considering the 2018 Constitution of the Shiv Sena party, which appointed Mr. Thackeray as president. This had been relied on by the High Court and Supreme Court, but “the Speaker said he will not depend on this Constitution as it was not filed with the Election Commission of India. So, he went by a Constitution from 1999 when nobody had even talked about it,” Mr. Sibal submitted.
On the other hand, Senior Advocate Harish Salve argued that the documents which the Thackeray faction had produced were “brazenly fabricated.” He also noted that a similar case about the January 10 decision by the speaker was pending before the Bombay High Court and said that multiple petitions before different courts could not be filed at the same time over the same issue by the Thackeray faction.
The Supreme Court, however, has listed the case for further arguments in the week of April 8.
The Hindu Editorials
Text and Context
The Hindu’s Daily News Quiz
The Supreme Court recently condemned the illegal felling of over 6,000 trees for eco-tourism at which national park, calling it a classic nexus between politicians and officials?
- Kaziranga National Park, Assam
- Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand
- Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh
- Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu
To know the answer and to play the full quiz, click here.
