Supreme Court questions Guv’s role in Maharashtra crisis: Top 5 points

🔴 A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud wondered if a difference of opinion among MLAs within a party can be a ground for the governor to call for the floor test.

🔴 Observing that the governor cannot lend his office to effectuate a particular result, the bench said calling for a trust vote will lead to toppling of elected government. “It will be a sad spectacle for democracy,” the bench said.

🔴 The observations by the bench were made after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for former Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, narrated the sequence of events, stating that there were various materials before the governor including a letter signed by 34 Shiv Sena MLAs, a letter from Independent lawmakers withdrawing support to the Uddhav Thackeray government, and another of the Leader of the Opposition that prompted him to order a trust vote.

The bench said that a letter by the Opposition leader does not matter in the instant case because he will always keep on writing that the government has lost majority or MLAs are not happy, PTI reported. The letter from MLAs that there was a threat to their security is also not relevant in this case, it said.

🔴 It continued: “The only thing is that a resolution of 34 MLAs which said that there was widespread discontent among the party cadres and legislators….Is this sufficient ground to call for trust vote? Although, in the hindsight we can say that Uddhav Thackeray had lost the mathematical equation.”

🔴 The bench, also comprising Justices MR Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha, said that the governor should have asked the rebel Shiv Sena MLAs why they suddenly wished to go out of the alliance after a three-year “happy marriage” with the Congress and the NCP. “Three years you cohabited in an alliance, and one fine day, you decided for divorce. The rebel MLAs became ministers in another dispensation. Governor has to ask these questions to himself. What were you fellows doing for such a long time and now suddenly you want a divorce,” the bench said.

The court was hearing the case after the Shinde faction, on March 2, told the former that pleas related to the Maharashtra political crisis fell within the realm of politics and judiciary cannot be asked to adjudicate the issue.

Since then, the Thackeray-led faction and Eknath-led faction of the Shiv Sena have been at loggerheads with each other. Last month, the Election Commission declared the Shinde faction as ‘real Shiv Sena’ and allotted it the bow and arrow election symbol of the party founded by Balasaheb Thackeray.