Maharashtra speaker to club all Shiv Sena disqualification petitions

Maharashtra assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar on Friday decided to club the cross-petitions filed by the rival Shiv Sena factions seeking disqualification of each other's MLAs after a split in the party last year, and hear them together, an opposition legislator said after attending a hearing on the matter.

He gave time till October 25 to the ruling Shiv Sena headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the rival faction led by former CM Uddhav Thackeray to submit their written replies to the petitions submitted by them to the speaker's office, said the legislator. Sunil Prabhu, an MLA of the opposition Shiv Sena (UBT), said the speaker has decided to club all disqualification petitions and hear them together. The next hearing will take place on October 26, he said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led faction had earlier demanded that all the cross-petitions petitions be heard together so that the proceedings are concluded expeditiously. This demand was, however, opposed by the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, which insisted on independent hearings of the pleas. The speaker's decision comes days after the Supreme Court granted him a final opportunity to give it a realistic time-frame for deciding the petitions.

On Tuesday last, the apex court said the disqualification petitions have to be adjudicated expeditiously. The SC had earlier come down hard on Narwekar over the delay in deciding the pleas filed by the Thackeray faction for disqualification of Shinde and several MLAs loyal to him, saying the speaker cannot defeat the orders of the top court. Similar disqualification petitions have been filed by the Shinde group against lawmakers owing allegiance to Thackeray.

On September 18, the top court had directed the speaker to spell out the timeline for adjudication of the petitions. The Shiv Sena suffered a split when a group of MLAs led by Shinde revolted against the party leadership and joined hands with the BJP to form a government in June 2022. The revolt led to the collapse of the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government headed by Thackeray. Shinde later took over as chief minister.