SC to hear on October 13 Sharad Pawar camp plea against Speaker’s ‘inaction’ on disqualification proceedings of breakaway NCP MLAs
The Hindu
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list on October 13 a petition filed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar’s loyalist, Jayant Patil, to intervene with Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to hear disqualification proceedings against party legislators who have changed fealty to Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said the case would be listed on October 13 along with Uddhav Thackeray camp’s plea that Mr. Narwekar was sitting on disqualification proceedings against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his breakaway loyalists whose actions had led to a split in the Shiv Sena party.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list on October 13 a petition filed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar’s loyalist, Jayant Patil, to intervene with Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to hear disqualification proceedings against party legislators who have changed fealty to Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said the case would be listed on October 13 along with Uddhav Thackeray camp’s plea that Mr. Narwekar was sitting on disqualification proceedings against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his breakaway loyalists whose actions had led to a split in the Shiv Sena party.
On September 18, the top court had given the Speaker a week’s time to prepare a time schedule to open the pending disqualification proceedings against Mr. Shinde and other MLAs in his faction accused of defection.
“We will hear this matter [Jayant Patil case] along with the [Shiv Sena case]...We had asked the Speaker in the latter case to fix a timeline,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A.M. Singhvi, appearing for Mr. Patil.
Mr. Sibal said the disqualification petitions were filed on July 2 and nothing had been done till October.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, intervening, said the two cases should not be listed together as they were “entirely different on facts”.
“We will hear it on Friday [September 13],” Chief Justice Chandrachud said.
No room for complacency till counting is completed, Chandrababu Naidu tells TDP-BJP-JSP contestants. The TDP-BJP-JSP alliance will register a comfortable victory in the general elections over the YSRCP, he says. Alleging that the YSRCP has conspired to create disturbances on the counting day, the TDP national president advises the chief counting agents and their teams to see to it that the officials adhere to norms related to counting.