Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his group of 40 MLAs heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court declined Uddhav Thackeray's plea to refer the ongoing case to a seven judges bench.
The Uddhav Thackeray group had approached the SC asking to move the case to 7 judges bench as Nabam Rabia judgement is not suited in Maharashtra case. After hearing the case for three days and keeping matters reserved for the day, the SC resumed on Friday and said that this case needs to be heard on merit before deciding anything on Uddhav Thackeray plea. Now SC will hear the matter from Tuesday and will decide on Thackeray plea afterwards.
The battle between the Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde factions has been before SC for the last six months. During the hearing, Shinde group had mentioned the Arunachal Pradesh speaker Nabam Rabia's case many times.
In this case, Rabia was speaker and had heard the case of disqualification from the opposite side although there was a no-confidence motion pending before him. Uddhav Thackeray had appealed saying that since the Maharashtra case was a bit different, the 2016's judgement in Nabam Rabia case was not applicable here.
Unhappy with the five-judge bench's verdict, Thackeray had requested the court to refer the matter to a 7-judge bench. To this, SC said on Friday that it cannot give ruling on the case in parts. It will have to hear the case on merit. This is a huge relief for Eknath Shinde group as it was referring to the Nabam Rabia case time and again in its argument.
Reacting to the court's decision to hear the case, CM Shinde said that he welcomed the verdict and wanted SC to hear the case on merit only. “We have full faith in the judiciary. In democracy, coming to power with a majority has huge value. We are working for the betterment of people. Hence we want the judiciary to decide on the basis of merits,” said Shinde.
Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also welcomed the SC’s stance saying that Uddhav Thackeray group is purposely trying to delay the matter. “Now SC has decided to hear the case from Tuesday. This will speed up the process and the verdict will be out soon,” he said.
Meanwhile, deputy speaker of state assembly Narahari Zirwal has also reacted to the development. He said that if Shinde group believes that if I had no right to proceed with the disqualification procedure then how come I was allowed to proceed to elect new speaker Rahul Narvekar. “The new speaker was elected after I initiated the process. It means that I had the right to process a disqualification plea. Objections on my legality are thus invalid,” claimed Zirwal
Rajya Sabha MP and Sena - UBT leader Sanjay Raut said that the court will have to give a verdict soon. “We have complete faith in the judiciary. We will wait for the verdict and we are sure that the court will stand with our lawful position,” he said.
If SC continues to hear the case without referring it to the 7 judge bench then the verdict is likely to come soon. There are total 6 cases like legality of deputy speaker to hear MLAs disqualification process, role of governor, anti-defection issue in the case and others.
