The Supreme Court of India has stated that Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde would not have been able to become the Chief Minister of Maharashtra without the assembly speaker being restrained from deciding on the disqualification petitions pending against 39 MLAs. The court heard arguments from both Shinde and Thackeray factions, and Shinde's lawyers claimed that even if the 39 MLAs had been disqualified from the assembly, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government would have fallen because it had lost the majority, and Uddhav Thackeray, the then Chief Minister, had resigned before the floor test, reported news agency PTI.
Shinde had won the crucial floor test in the state assembly on July 4, 2022, with the support of BJP and independents. In the 288-member House, 164 MLAs had voted for the motion of confidence, while 99 voted against it.
PTI reported that Shinde's lawyers also argued that the legislative party is an integral part of the original political party, and they had raised their voice in the party. The very act of filing disqualification petitions with the speaker by the Thackeray faction was to stifle dissent, they said. The hearing remained inconclusive, and it would continue on Thursday.
The political crisis in Maharashtra erupted after an open revolt in the Sena, and on June 29, 2022, the apex court refused to stay the Maharashtra governor's direction to the 31-month-old MVA government to take a floor test in the assembly to prove its majority. On August 23, 2022, a three-judge bench of the top court headed by then Chief Justice N V Ramana had formulated several questions of law and referred to the five-judge bench petitions filed by the two Sena factions.
The Thackeray faction had earlier told the top court that the formation of a new government in Maharashtra under Shinde was the "direct and inevitable result" of two orders of the apex court dated June 27, 2022, (restraining the speaker from deciding the pending disqualification petitions) and June 29, 2022, (allowing the trust vote to be held) and had "disturbed the co-equal and mutual balance" between judicial and legislative organs of the State.
(With agency inputs.)