NEW DELHI, Oct 13: The delay in deciding the disqualification petitions against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Shiv Sena MLAs loyal to him today came under strict scrutiny by the Supreme Court which came down hard on the Maharashtra assembly speaker, saying the proceedings cannot be a “charade” and he cannot “defeat” its orders.
A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Speaker Rahul Narwekar, to apprise it about the timeline for deciding the petitions on Tuesday, saying it will pass a “peremptory order” if it is not satisfied.
“Somebody has to advise the (assembly) speaker. He cannot defeat the orders of the Supreme Court. What kind of time schedule is he prescribing?…This (disqualification proceedings) is a summary procedure. Last time, we thought, better sense will prevail and had asked him to lay down a time schedule…,” said the bench.
The idea of laying down the time schedule was not to “indefinitely delay” the hearing on the disqualification proceedings, the court said.
A visibly irked CJI said a decision on disqualification pleas has to be taken before the next assembly elections otherwise the whole process will become infructuous. The next state assembly polls will likely be held around September-October 2024. “These decisions have to be taken well before the next elections. The idea should not be that, well, allow this to go on merrily so that the whole exercise becomes infructuous,” the bench said.
It said the apex court was not going to tells as to what applications the speaker should decide.
“But, he must give the impression that he is taking matters seriously. What has happened in this matter since June…Nothing, no action. When the matter is coming up before this Court then some hearing takes place there,” it said.
“He must hear it day-to-day and complete the hearing. He can’t say that I will hear twice a week then, after November, I will decide when to pronounce the order,” the CJI said.
“The speaker is an election tribunal while he is exercising his function as the speaker of the house and the election tribunal is amenable to the jurisdiction of our court,” the bench said.
Voicing concern over non-adherence to its earlier order, the apex court said nothing has moved in the matter since June and asked the government’s top law officer to “advise the speaker”, saying “he needs assistance which is obvious”.
The bench said the speaker must give the impression that he was taking the matter seriously.
“Since June, there has been no action in the matter. What has happened in this case? Nothing! This cannot become a charade. There has to be a hearing (before the speaker),” the bench said.
The solicitor general referred to the difficulties faced by the speaker and said documents after documents are thrust upon him and parties approach like students.
“We are willing to make an allowance in his favour. But, the procedure which is prescribed, must give an impression that there is a serious attempt to decide the issues,” the bench said.
The CJI said the court will “hold the parties down” to ensure that no more documents are filed, and told the counsel for the Thackeray faction that every time they filed something new, they gave some ammunition to the speaker to adjourn the hearing.
“We issued notice in this matter on July 14 , 2023 thereafter, we passed the order on September 18 expecting that the speaker will set down a reasonable time schedule for completing the hearing. Now, we find that there are no such efforts on the part of the speaker. Now we are constrained to say that he must take a decision within a period of two months. Because you know six months have elapsed,” the bench said.
The bench said the reason why it did not set the time schedule was because the court respected the fact that the speaker is the coordinate branch of the government, namely the legislature.
“But if he does not do so then we have to hold them to account to say that after all you are an election tribunal and you have to decide,” the bench said.
“I am very clear that we show deference to every branch of the government but the writ of this court has to run where we find there is a decision in breach of the constitutional prescriptions or there is failure to take decision as mandated by the Constitution,” the CJI said.
Referring to the court’s earlier orders not being followed by the speaker, the CJI said, “I am concerned about maintaining the dignity of our court.”
The top court was hearing two petitions filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and the Sharad Pawar bloc of the NCP, seeking a direction to the speaker to expeditiously decide disqualification proceedings against some MLAS.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray faction, referred to the delay in the proceedings and alleged that now the party will have to lead evidence to show it is an aggrieved party and said a “farce” is going on.
He said notice on the plea was issued on July 14 and nothing effective has been done till date.
The senior lawyer said if the speaker declines to club the disqualification pleas, then each matter will have to be dealt with separately.
“The court will have to decide what is the responsibility of a tribunal (the speaker works as a tribunal for disqualification purposes) in the matter,” Sibal said.
Another senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi said on Thursday, the speaker spent four hours clubbing several disqualification petitions only because the matter was to come up before the top court.
The bench then said somebody has to advise the speaker as he cannot defeat the purpose of the apex court orders.
The solicitor general referred to the problems and cross claims filed with the speaker and said, “I was not expecting this court to hear what he (speaker) does day-to-day…”.
Earlier on September 18, the bench had directed the speaker to spell out the time table for adjudication of the disqualification petitions against Shinde and Shiv Sena MLAs owing allegiance to him who had tied up with the BJP to form a new government in June 2022.
The court had asked the solicitor general to apprise the bench of the time schedule to be fixed by the speaker for deciding the pleas for disqualification of 56 MLAs including lawmakers belonging to the Shinde faction.
The Thackeray faction had moved the apex court in July seeking direction to the state assembly speaker to expeditiously adjudicate the disqualification petitions in a time-bound manner.
The plea by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLA Sunil Prabhu, who as the chief whip of the undivided Shiv Sena had filed the disqualification petitions against Shinde and other MLAs in 2022, alleged Speaker Rahul Narwekar is deliberately delaying the adjudication despite the verdict of the apex court.
Later, a separate plea was filed by the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for a direction to the assembly speaker to expeditiously decide the disqualification petitions against deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and party MLAs loyal to him. (PTI)
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