New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted 10 more days to Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide the cross-petitions filed by the rival factions of the Shiv Sena seeking disqualification of each other's MLAs. The court had earlier asked the speaker to decide the disqualification leas by December 31.
On Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the speaker, submitted that there are documents of over 2 lakh pages to be examined by Narwekar and he is conducting proceedings even during the Winter Session of the Assembly held in Nagpur, which began on December 7 and will go until December 20.
Narwekar's interim application
Narwekar, in his interim application, submitted that after the Winter Session ends on December 20, the Legislature Secretariat has to move from Nagpur to Mumbai takes two to three days.
“Hence, even if the hearing of the disqualification petitions is over on December 22, 2023, the Speaker would not be able to peruse the papers and work on the judgments before December 26, 2023.” The plea noted that the speaker has put in “all earnest efforts to abide by the timeline directed by this Apex Court”.
On October 30, the Apex court refused to grant time beyond December 31 to the speaker who had filed an affidavit seeking permission till February 29, 2024, to complete the hearings. It had also asked the speaker to decide on the isqualification pleas related to two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on or before January 31, 2024.
