<
div id=”pcl-full-content”>The Supreme Court on Friday extended by ten days – from December 31 to January 10, 2024 – the time granted to Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide on the disqualification petitions filed in the aftermath of the rebellion in the Shiv Sena camp last year.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra passed an interim application filed by Narwekar seeking extension of time to decide on the pleas by three weeks, till January 21.
<
div class=”ev-meter-content ie-premium-content-block”><img loading=”lazy” src=”https://data.indianexpress.com/election2019/track_1x1.jpg” data-lazy-src=”https://data.indianexpress.com/election2019/track_1x1.jpg” alt=”” width=”1px” height=”1px” “/>
On October 30, the apex court refused to grant time beyond December 31 to the speaker who had filed an affidavit seeking permission till February 29, 2024, to complete the hearings. It had also asked the speaker to decide on the disqualification pleas related to two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on or before January 31, 2024
On Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the speaker, submitted that there are documents of over 2 lakh pages to be examined by Narwekar and he is conducting proceedings even during the Winter Session of the Assembly held in Nagpur, which began on December 7 and will go until December 20.
Narwekar, in his interim application, submitted that after the Winter Session gets over on December 20, the Legislature Secretariat has to move from Nagpur to Mumbai which takes about two to three days. “Hence, even if the hearing of the disqualification petitions is over on December 22, 2023, the Speaker would not be able to peruse the papers and work on the judgments before December 26, 2023.”
He claimed that there are a total of 34 petitions and 133 respondents as per which 56 MLAs are sought to be disqualified under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. There are 34 petitions, each running into approximately 2,821 pages, to which 133 respondents have filed separate replies running into nearly 2.71 lakh pages. Narwekar also added that there are witnesses for and on behalf of some petitioners and respondents in the disqualification petitions and cross examinations, which run into several pages.
Therefore, he sought reasonable time to conduct the hearing and go through “extraordinarily voluminous documents” before taking decisions.
The plea noted that the speaker has put in “all earnest efforts to abide by the timeline directed by this Apex Court”.
“However, despite all the extraordinary efforts put in, the Hon’ble Speaker would only be able to close the disqualification petitions for judgments and not be in a position to deliver judgments in the Disqualification Petitions before December 31 2023 as it is highly impossible to deliver judgments in relation to disqualification of 56 MLAs within a short span of one week after the conclusion of hearings and proceedings,” the plea noted.
The bench, in its order, noted that the speaker indicated the proceedings would be closed for orders on December 28.
However, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) said the speaker can only be given one more week to decide on the pleas as he had made the same request during an earlier hearing.
“Bearing in mind the time limit laid out earlier, we grant extension of time till January 10, 2024 for the speaker to deliver judgment,” the bench noted in its order.
About Post Author
