THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
Mumbai, Jan 17: In reaction to a petition filed by Bharatshet Gogawale, the chief whip of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, contesting Narwekar’s decision not to disqualify the Uddhav Thackeray faction MLAs, the Bombay High Court has sent notices to both Speaker Rahul Narwekar of Maharashtra and 14 MLAs from Thackeray’s faction.
Further hearings have been scheduled for February 8 by the bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Firdosh Pooniwalla, who instructed all respondents to file their affidavits.
Petition seeks disqualification of 14 UBT MLAs
Gogawale filed petitions on January 12, aiming to declare the Speaker’s decision as legally erroneous, nullify it, and disqualify all 14 UBT MLAs. Concurrently, the Thackeray faction has also moved to the Supreme Court to contest the Speaker’s ruling.
The parties named in the civil petitions are Rahul Patil, Ramesh Korgaonkar, Rajan Salvi, Udaysingh Rajput, Bhaskar Jadhav, Prakash Pjaterphekar, Kailash Patil, Sunil Raut, Vinayak Chaowdhary, Nitin Deshmukh, Ravindra Vaikar, Sunil Prabhu, Vaibhav Naik and Sanjay Potnis.
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Gogawale asserts that members of the Thackeray faction breached the whip and abandoned their Shiv Sena allegiance. He supports this claim by pointing out their votes against the Shiv Sena government in collaboration with Congress and the NCP, signalling an effort to destabilize the ruling administration.
Petition says Speaker’s order unconstitutional
According to Gogawale, the Speaker’s ruling incorrectly disregarded these assertions as mere accusations. “The Hon’ble Speaker failed to even peruse the reply filed by Gogawale wherein the Respondent has admitted to allegations of the Petitioner,” the petition says.
The Shinde faction has petitioned the High Court, claiming that the order is unlawful, void and unconstitutional.
The petition asks for the Speaker’s records and proceedings to be called, deemed “bad in law and set aside,” and the appropriate orders to be issued. The petition, in its plea to annul the Speaker’s decision, also calls for the disqualification of Thackeray faction MLAs based on their conduct and lapses as members of the Legislative Assembly.
In order to guarantee that things proceed as soon as possible, the bench clarified the auto-listing procedure.
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