The Supreme Court on Wednesday fixed January 21 for hearing pleas filed by the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction of the Shiv Sena against the Election Commission's order allotting the 'bow and arrow' symbol to the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said that it will start hearing arguments from January 21 on the Shiv Sena symbol dispute. The bench will then hear arguments on a similar dispute concerning the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on January 22, as there are several overlapping issues involved in both matters, it said.
The top court also fixed three hours for hearing arguments from each faction of the political parties.
Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, appearing for the Udhav faction, said that matters require urgent hearing as there are local body polls in the state. Justice Kant said political parties are always in election mode in India as they are contesting national elections, state polls or even local body polls.
Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Neeraj Kishan Kaul appeared for the Shinde faction.
On July 14, the top court fixed the matter for final hearing, saying the issue had been pending for a long time and the uncertainty cannot be allowed to continue. The Uddhav faction has challenged the February 17 order of the Election Commission, which has allotted the name 'Shiv Sena' and its poll symbol 'bow and arrow' to the group led by Shinde.
The Thackeray faction has also questioned the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker's decision to hand over the party's name and symbol to the opposite faction based on the legislative majority, saying it was contrary to a Constitution bench verdict of the top court.
On May 7, the top court asked the Thackeray-led faction to concentrate on the local body polls after the party sought an urgent hearing on its plea against the Speaker's decision.
In January 2024, Speaker Rahul Narwekar rejected Shiv Sena-UBT's plea to disqualify 16 MLAs, including Shinde of the ruling camp.
Challenging the orders passed by the Speaker in the top court, the Thackeray faction claimed they were "patently unlawful and perverse" and instead of punishing the act of defection, they rewarded the defectors by holding that they comprised the real political party.
The Speaker, the plea claimed, erred in holding that the majority of the Shiv Sena legislators represented the will of the Shiv Sena party.
In his ruling on the disqualification petitions, the Speaker did not disqualify any MLA belonging to the rival camps.
The Speaker's ruling further cemented Shinde's position as the then chief minister, 18 months after he led a rebellion against Thackeray and added to his political heft in the ruling coalition, which also comprised the BJP and the NCP (Ajit Pawar group) ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Shinde faction won seven seats. In the Maharashtra polls, the party won 57 seats, the BJP 132 seats, while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP bagged 41 seats.
In December 2024, Devendra Fadnavis was back as the Maharashtra Chief Minister with Shinde and Pawar as deputy chief ministers.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
