Maharashtra Politics: Supreme Court moots referring issues to Constitution Bench

The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would consider referring issues arising out of a batch of petitions related to the Maharashtra political crisis to a five-judge Constitution Bench..The bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli was hearing petitions related to the formation of the Eknath Shinde-led BJP government in Maharashtra, the disqualification of rebel MLAs, and the right over the Shiv Sena's bow-and-arrow symbol.After hearing the parties, the Court said,"We will decide whether to refer matter to a five-judge Constitution Bench. The Election Commission (EC) has decided to submit reply by Uddhav faction [to application for symbol request made by the Shinde faction]. They will seek time. EC to grant reasonable adjournment. We will take a call by Monday.".Appearing for the Shinde faction, Senior Advocate Harish Salve submitted that disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution takes place only if the Speaker reaches a conclusion that a member has voted against the stand of a party. He then asked,"Then we have to see if pleas are infructuous or misconceived. Can voting against party directive be considered as void? Is that action illegal or an action which is lawful?"CJI Ramana queried at this point,"Then what is the use of whips? Does anti-defection apply to only those things?""Suppose a person is elected by corrupt practices all that he does is legal till he gets disqualified. Anti-defection law is to strike a balance," Salve replied.The senior lawyer went on to say,"Our case is whether the High Court consider this...then in every case where the ruling party and their dispensation is in problem, then they will come with issues like bias etc against the Speaker."CJI Ramana responded,"You say this Court and High Court should not hear this and this is after you had approached us first.".Representing the Thackeray faction, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal argued that there was no need to refer the issues to a Constitution Bench.The CJI then mooted,"Suppose there are two groups saying we are the real political party. General members of the political party cannot claim to recognise who is the original political party."To this, Sibal said,"They [Shinde faction] say they have the support of 40 out of 50 party members and thus they say they are real Shiv Sena. Now if the 40 are disqualified, what lies in this? If Election Commission decides one way or the other, what happens to this defection?"Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi added,"Till this Court decides, how can EC decide this issue so that later they say that these proceedings are infructuous?"Appearing for the Election Commission, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar then said,"When they [rebel MLAs] become disqualified, they are disqualified from the House but they are not disqualified from the party. Article 324 is clear and judgments are there in this case. This is not a political issue. Tenth Schedule cannot interdict this. I can only decide who can have the symbol after the evidence is adduced."The Court then asked the EC to allow the Thackeray faction to submit an affidavit, and in the mean time, to not decide who gets the symbol or take precipitative action..On Wednesday, the Court took an unfavourable view of the arguments made by the Shinde faction that the petitions filed by the Thackeray camp on disqualification of the rebel MLAs and the proceedings before the Election Commission with regard to the Shiv Sena symbol, are not maintainable."Who came to the Court first? Your submissions are leading to the point that you filed a writ and you got some time for 10 days and now other petitions should be ignored," CJI Ramana remarked..[Maharashtra politics] You filed petition first, got interim relief; now you cannot say ignore other side: Supreme Court to Eknath Shinde camp.In the wake of the political crisis in Maharashtra, rebel MLAs of the Shinde faction had received disqualification notices from the then Deputy Speaker for acting against the party whip while voting during the Member of Legislative Council (MLC) elections in the State. The rebel MLAs then approached the top court against the disqualification notices.The Supreme Court on June 27 granted interim relief to Shinde and his rebel group of MLAs by extending the time to file responses to the disqualification notices sent by the Deputy Speaker, till July 12.Subsequently, the Court on June 29 also gave the go-ahead to a floor test called for by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.This led to the fall of the Thackeray government and Shinde took oath as Chief Minister with the backing of the BJP, which is the single largest party in the House.The Thackeray camp meanwhile filed various petitions before the top court. One of the petitions has challenged the illegal summoning of the Assembly by the Governor of Maharashtra for conducting the floor test.Another petition challenged the illegal order of the newly appointed Speaker removing Ajay Chaudhary and Sunil Prabhu respectively from the posts of leader as well as Chief Whip of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party.The Shinde faction meanwhile approached the Election Commission to decide which is the real Shiv Sena - the Shinde camp or the Thackeray camp.This prompted the Thackeray camp to move the Supreme Court, contending that the Election Commission should be restrained from deciding the Shinde camp's plea until the petition on the disqualification of the rebel MLAs is decided by the apex court.