New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning ruled in favour of the Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena and Congress, which had demanded that a floor test be conducted in Maharashtra immediately. The bench of Justices N.V. Ramana, Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna said that a floor test must be held tomorrow by 5 pm.
A protem speaker is a temporary speaker, appointed for a limited period to conduct work on the floor of the assembly. The protem is administered oath by the state’s governor and s/he, in turn, administers the oath to the remaining MLAs.
In its interim order, the bench said that the proceedings of the House must be video recorded, and that a protem speaker must be appointed to administer the floor test. These orders will come as a blow to the Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party, which was hoping for a secret ballot during the floor test.
The court heard arguments on when a floor test should be held from both sides on Sunday and Monday, and reserved its order on Monday. The petitioners’ lawyers had questioned why the BJP was shying away from an immediate floor test, since it claimed to have the numbers in the assembly.
While these interim orders on the floor test have been passed, the case has not yet been disposed off. The major part of the Shiv Sena’s petition was on questioning the validity of Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s decisions which led to Fadnavis being sworn in as chief minister. These decisions, the petition alleges, were “arbitrary and malafide”.
“This case raises important constitutional issues regarding the powers of the governor. The court having regards to the decisions in the Bombai case and Uttarakhand case, it is imperative to prevent illegal activities like horse-trading and hence prevention has to be taken… Floor test has to be conducted by 5 pm, by a protem speaker… Oath will be administered starting from morning and go on till 5 pm,” Justice Ramana said while reading out the interim order.
The petitioners had argued that “the Governor has belittled the constitutional office of the Governor and has allowed himself to be a pawn in BJP’s illegal usurpation of power.”
The court has given the respondents – including the Union of India and Devendra Fadnavis – eight weeks to respond to the rest of the petition.
The BJP’s government formation came early on Saturday – a day after NCP leader Sharad Pawar had announced on Friday evening that the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress had come to an agreement that Uddhav Thackeray would be chief minister for the next five years, as the consensus candidate of the alliance. Weeks of back-and-forth had gone into this announcement.
Based on his claim of support from Ajit Pawar and the entire NCP legislature party, Fadnavis was sworn in at 8 am on Saturday. Earlier, president’s rule in the state was hurriedly revoked at 5:47 am that morning.
Sharad Pawar tweeted that the NCP was not backing the BJP and that Ajit Pawar (his nephew) had gone out on his own. Ajit has since been sacked as NCP legislature party leader, and disciplinary committee set up by the party has moved to expel him.
The NCP-Shiv Sena-Congress has claimed to have 162 MLAs’ support, even organising a “parade” to show strength on Monday evening at the Hotel Hyatt in Mumbai.
Read the court’s full order on the floor test below.
SC order on Maharashtra floor test by The Wire on Scribd
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