Maharashtra Speaker hears disqualification pleas of rival Shiv Sena factions, next hearing on Oct 13

In the wake of Supreme Court's directive to the Speaker to spell out a timeline for deciding on the disqualification petitions, a hearing was held this afternoon. The next hearing has been listed on October 13.

Mumbai: Following a Supreme Court directive, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Monday held a hearing for the disqualification petitions filed by rival factions of chief minister Eknath Shinde and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray against each other. The next hearing has been scheduled on October 13.

Narwekar had issued notices to 53 MLAs asking them to appear for hearing on the disqualification petitions. Among which 40 MLAs were from Shinde group and remaining 13 from Thackeray group.

The hearing was held this afternoon and lawyers of both the groups attended it while placing their arguments. Anil Sakhre, Shinde group's lawyer said that the Election Commission has given the Shiv Sena party name and symbol to the Shinde group and argued that the 10th schedule that calls for disqualification of a member found to have defected does not apply to them.

On the other hand, Thackeray group's lawyer Devdutt Kamat demanded that all 34 petitions should be combined and heard together. The Shinde group has opposed the joint hearing.

Earlier, the Supreme Court expressed its dissatisfaction over the delay in conducting the hearing and ordered Narwekar to start the proceedings within a week. The court had asked the Speaker to specify a timeline for taking decision on the matter.

On Thursday, Nawrekar said that he would neither delay nor rush with the decision on disqualification petitions. The hearing for the disqualification petitions started last week and a total of 34 petitions are being heard.