Mumbai: Speaker of Maharashtra assembly Rahul Narvekar scheduled the next hearing on petitions for disqualification of MLAs on November 2, as the House saw heated arguments among the counsels over an application moved by the Shinde camp on Thursday.
As the hearing resumed at around 4.40pm on Thursday, Shinde camp moved an application seeking 14 days to submit evidence regarding the petitions. While arguing against the request, the Thackeray camp said that it was malafide and with an intent of delaying the hearing. The Shinde camp also argued that the meetings on June 21 and 22, 2022 over which the MLAs sought to be disqualified, didn't actually take place and that they wanted to present evidence in this regard. However, the Thackeray group counsel argued that the application has come very late and is intended to delay the proceedings.
Thackeray group counsel also argued that the Speaker is supposed to prima facie decide in these cases and doesn't really need to go into the evidence.
While moving the application, the Shinde group read out the Supreme Court ruling and pointed out that the Speaker has all the rights to decide upon who is the party, who is the whip and then decide upon the disqualification petitions.
The Shinde group also objected to Uddhav Thackeray's election of party chief while citing several other disqualification cases.
While opposing the application, the Thackeray camp argued that the application amounts to overstepping the SC directive. The SC has asked for a new schedule, but now arguments are being made on presenting evidence, they said while arguing that this is a delaying tactic. The counsels from Shinde camp objected to the arguments several times and a few sparkles among the counsels too were witnessed. The counsel for Thackeray group argued for over an hour. However, the hearing shall continue on the same note on November 2 as the rejoinder is still pending, the Speaker ruled at the end of argument.
