Maharashtra: No immediate action on Supreme Court ruling on suspended MLAs

When the Maharashtra assembly’s budget session begins on Thursday, all eyes would be on the status of 12 BJP MLAs, whose one-year suspension was squashed by the Supreme Court in January.Maha Vikas Aghadi insiders told ET that the judgement has raised a number of procedural and constitutional questions on powers and jurisdictions of the office of the Speaker, the legislature and the judiciary and needed to be studied on how and who could decide on implementing the SC order.”It is proving to be extremely difficult” to decide on the matter at this juncture. It would take the collective view of the House to even start proceedings towards looking at the issues involved regarding the SC order, an MVA leader said. The 12 BJP MLAs were suspended for a year for ‘unruly behaviour’ last July by then presiding officer Bhaskar Jadhav, after the House passed a resolution to that effect. The Supreme Court ruled in January that suspension of the MLAs, beyond that session was ‘unconstitutional and irrational’.

Later, MVA’s internal deliberations concluded that the Supreme Court order involved supremacy of the Speaker’s decisions in the House vis-a-vis court orders. “The MVA government’s formal request to the President of India, within days of the SC order, to exercise his powers under the provisions of the Constitution and urge SC to review the judgement has not been acted upon, even after the Maharashtra Legislative Council Chairman took up the matter with the President last month. It only adds to the larger dimension of the matter,” said an MVA insider.The Speaker’s post has been vacant since February 2021, following the resignation of Nana Patole who became the PCC president. That there was no full-time Speaker who can take a view on either implementing the SC order or on seeking a review of the judgement has added to the problem, according to MVA insiders.”The MVA, therefore, intends to hold the election of the new Speaker during this budget session, provided opposition BJP members ensure a constructive atmosphere in the House by participating in the election. The new Speaker can then take a call on how to go about the SC order,” said an MVA leader. Alliance partners Shiv Sena and NCP will leave the Speaker’s post for a Congress nominee, once more.In a related development, a delegation of suspended BJP MLAs had called on chief minister Uddhav Thackeray recently and requested him to act on the SC order. However, the CM is learnt to have remained non-committal. “There is no easy way out here” said an MVA functionary, as “tricky issues were involved”. The decision to suspend the 12 MLAs was taken by a standby presiding officer who cannot decide on the SC order involving the larger institution of the Speaker. The deputy Speaker, an NCP nominee, too has a similar difficulty, the MVA insider said.