MUMBAI: Maharashtra Assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar held a meeting with Solicitor General Tushar Mehta at the latter's residence in Delhi on Sunday to discuss the issue of disqualification of MLAs.
On Monday the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the pleas filed by the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party seeking directions to the assembly speaker to expeditiously decide the disqualification petitions.
Speaking to the media in Delhi after his meeting with Mehta, Narwekar said, " We shall submit our stand in court."
The Supreme Court on October 17 had granted Narwekar a final opportunity to give it a realistic time-frame for deciding the cross-petitions filed by rival factions of the Shiv Sena seeking disqualification of each other's MLAs following a split in the party. The apex court had said the disqualification petitions have to be adjudicated expeditiously.
Earlier coming down heavily on Narwekar, the Bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said the Speaker cannot defeat the orders of the top court. "We are not satisfied with the time schedule. SG has apprised that during Dussehra break he would personally engage with the Speaker so as to indicate a firm set of modalities."
On September 18, the Supreme Court directed the Speaker to spell out the timeline for adjudication of the disqualification petitions against Shinde and his associate MLAs who had tied up with the BJP to form a new government in June 2022. The court had asked the Solicitor General to apprise the Bench of the time schedule to be fixed by the Speaker for deciding the pleas for disqualification of 56 MLAs including lawmakers belonging to the Shinde faction.
