As the Supreme Court on Wednesday began to hear the cases on the rift of the Shiv Sena, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Uddhav camp, said democracy is in peril and whatever happened in Maharashtra is a mockery of democratic institutions. Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for chief minister Eknath Shinde, said this argument does not fit here where a CM (Uddhav) is overthrown by his party members. The CJI bench asked both sides to file relevant documents, compilations and replies by August 1. Until then, the Maharashtra speaker has been asked not to deal with the MLA disqualification pleas. “I strongly feel some of these issues may require a larger bench,” the CJI said.
Kapil Sibal, beginning his argument, said there must be a merger if a rebel camp wants protection against disqualification. “Until the SC decides all the points of law, nothing should be done. Let this court also decide on the disqualification petitions,” Sibal said.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi also appeared for the Uddhav Thackeray faction and argued that the floor test should have been stalled by the Supreme court. “Tenth Schedule has been made nugatory,” he added.
Senior advocate Harish Salve appeared for chief minister Eknath Shinde and said, “What’s wrong with internal party democracy? What’s wrong with questioning the leader of your party by not defecting to some other party but gather enough support within the party. That’s not defection.”
“Can it be argued that someone who doesn’t even have 15-20 MLAs supporting him should be brought back? Saying that a CM has lost the majority in the House isn’t voluntarily giving up membership. Raising your voice within your party without supporting some other party isn’t defection. Membership in a party isn’t an oath of silence,” Salve argued adding that the Supreme Court can’t assume the role of a tribunal to decide disqualification petitions. “The larger-than-life arguments on democracy in peril etc doesn’t square up when a CM has been overthrown by his own party members,” Salve said.
CJI NV Ramana said some issues including removal of Schedule 3 on split and whether a minority within a legislature party can disqualify the majority are some of the issues that will require a decision.
The hearing comes a day after Shiv Sena got a new leader in the Lok Sabha from the Eknath Shinde camp – Rahul Shewale. A total of 12 Lok Sabha MPs, including chief minister Eknath Shinde’s son Shrikant Eknath Shinde, joined the Eknath Shinde camp and claimed that Uddhav had been trying to realign his ties with the BJP.