The following are the highlights of the Supreme Court verdict in which a five-judge Constitution bench unanimously held on Thursday that it cannot restore the then Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray as the former chief minister resigned without facing a floor test in June last year.
IMAGE: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis flash the V sign after a special session of the Maharashtra assembly, at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai, July 4, 2022. Photograph: Kunal Patil/PTI Photo
- SC said it could have considered the grant of remedy of reinstating the MVA government headed by Thackeray if he had refrained from resigning from the chief minister's post.
- SC pulled up former Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and said he did not have reasons based on objective material placed before him to arrive at the conclusion that then chief minister Thackeray had lost the confidence of the House.
- SC held that the then speaker's decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale of the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena as the party's whip in the Maharashtra Assembly was "contrary to law".
- SC said the governor of a state is not empowered to enter the political arena and play a role in inter-party or intra-party disputes.
- SC said the discretion exercised by then Maharashtra governor Koshyari, asking Chief Minister Thackeray to face a floor test, was "not in accordance with law".
- SC said the governor's June 30, 2022, decision to invite Shinde to form a new government was justified.
- The SC said once a government is democratically elected in accordance with law, there is a presumption that it enjoys the confidence of the House and there must exist some objective material to dislodge this presumption.
- SC said it cannot ordinarily adjudicate disqualification petitions against legislators under the anti-defection law and directed the Maharashtra assembly speaker to take a decision on such pleas against Chief Minister Shinde and other MLAs within a reasonable period.
- SC referred the 2016 Nabam Rebia verdict pronounced by a five-judge Constitution bench relating to the speaker's power regarding disqualification of MLAs to a larger bench of seven judges, saying a substantial question of law remains to be settled.
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