Supreme Court allows Election Commission to decide plea by Eknath Shinde faction for real Shiv Sena tag, symbol

In a major setback for the Uddhav Thackeray camp, the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Election Commission of India to decide a plea by the Eknath Shinde faction to be recognised as the ‘real’ Shiv Sena and to use the bow and arrow symbol of the party. .A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha rejected the plea filed by Thakceray camp which sought a stay on Election Commission of India (ECI) proceedings till the Supreme Court decides the plea regarding disqualification of MLAs belonging to Shinde camp. "We direct there shall be no stay on proceedings before the election commission. Interim application seeking stay stands dismissed," the bench said..It was the Thackeray camp's argument that after the Supreme Court last heard the case relating to Maharashtra elections, they made a representation to the ECI requesting it not to proceed with the matter, as substantially similar matters were pending before the top court.It was further contended that if the ECI is allowed to continue with the proceedings, it would not only precipitate issues of great Constitutional import, but would also cause irreparable injury to the applicant.It would also amount to interference with the judicial proceedings and thus, amount to contempt of court, stated the applicant.“Further such proceedings would also be in teeth of settled law that an inquiry into a matter which is sub judice before the Court amounts to interference with the judicial proceedings and thus, amounts to contempt of the court as has been held in a number of decisions of this Hon’ble Court and various High Courts," the plea said.The applicants, thus, prayed for a stay on the ECI proceedings and also sought impleadment of the poll body as a party to the case before the top court so as to prevent any adverse orders by them..Maharashtra was thrown into a political crisis after Shinde and a rebel group of MLAs left the State first for Surat and then for Guwahati. The Shinde group has expressed its displeasure with the Shiv Sena's alliance with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party.Some of the rebel MLAs then received disqualification notices from the 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 the Governor.This led to the fall of Uddhav Thackeray led government and Shinde was subsequently sworn-in as Chief Minister of State with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)..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 from the posts of leader as well as Chief Whip of the Shiv Sena Legislature Party respectively.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..Senior Advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul, Maninder Singh, Mahesh Jethmalani, Siddharth Bhatnagar, Malvika Trivedi, and Advocates on Record Abhikalp Pratap Singh and Abhinay Sharma represented the Shinde faction.

Supreme Court allows Election Commission to decide plea by Eknath Shinde faction for real Shiv Sena tag, symbol

Debayan Roy

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