NCP versus NCP: Supreme Court agrees to take up Sharad Pawar faction’s plea on Friday

Satya Prakash

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New Delhi, October 9

The Supreme Court will take up on Friday on a petition filed by Sharad Pawar faction’s plea against alleged delay on the part of Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar in deciding disqualification petitions under the anti-defection law against Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and 8 other MLAs.

A Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud agreed to hear NCP Sharad Pawar faction MLA Jayant Patil’s petition on October 13 along with another petition involving similar dispute regarding Shiv Sena MLAs after senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter and sought urgent listing of the case.

Patil has sought a direction to the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker to expeditiously decide disqualification petitions against Ajit Pawar and party MLAs loyal to him.

On behalf of Patil, Sibal submitted that the disqualification petitions were filed with the speaker on July 2 but no notice was issued on them till date.

However, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Ajit Pawar faction of NCP, said one disqualification petition was filed in September.

The Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP had moved the Maharashtra assembly speaker in July seeking disqualification of Ajit Pawar and eight other MLAs, who had taken oath as ministers of the Shinde government.

In the Shiv Sena case, the top court had on September 18 disapproved of the inordinate delay on the part of Maharashtra Assembly Speaker in adjudicating on anti-defection petitions against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde andShivSenaMLAs supporting him and asked him to come out with a timeline within a week for deciding the matter.

“What did the speaker do after the May 11 judgment by the court? It appears that nothing has happened… You can’t say that I’ll hear it in due course,” it had told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who represented the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker.