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Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar held a hearing of disqualification pleas of Shiv Sena MLAs Thursday during which the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena claimed that their MLAs did not receive any whip from the party over the election of a Speaker and vote of confidence in July 2022.
On Monday, the Supreme Court had given a deadline of December 31 for adjudication of the disqualification pleas.
During the hearing, both the sides argued over whether the whip was issued to Shinde Sena MLAs.
While the Shinde camp claimed that no such whip was received by them, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena UBT clarified that the whip was issued by MLA Sunil Prabhu and sent on the official email ids of the MLAs which was on record in the party’s legislature office.
“The Shinde faction’s lawyers, however, denied the Sena UBT’s claim saying that that the email on which the whip was sent was not theirs and that since they have not received any whip there is no question of violating it,” an official said.
Sena UBT Rajya Sabha MP Anil Desai said that the whip was issued via email on the official ids of the MLAs.
The Sena UBT has urged the tribunal to allow them to present evidence to prove that the whip were issued.
“The whips were issued on July 2 and also on July 4, 2022. While one whip was issued asking MLAs to vote for Rajan Salvi who was our candidate for the post of Speaker, the second one was to vote for the party in the vote of confidence. They (Shinde led group) have violated both these whips and they have incurred disqualification. There was an argument over this. The SC has also asked to submit a common compilation of admission and denial, so that was accepted,” Desai said.
“The Speaker has said that he will take a decision on holding day to day hearings and has said that a decision will take before December 31. The Speaker also said that like here in Mumbai, hearings can also be taken in Nagpur,” Desai said.
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After the arguments from both the sides, the hearing was adjourned and next hearing will take place on November 21.
The tribunal headed by Narwekar asked both the factions to submit “common convince compilation” documents and evidence by November 6 and 16 respectively.
After the SC instructions, Narwekar will now hold more hearings over the next few weeks instead of the earlier planned one hearing per week and even curtail the procedure to finish the proceedings on time.
The Sena UBT demanded an hearing on daily basis to meet the deadline and give decision before the SC order.
Narwekar, however, is yet to give the fresh timetable.
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