Shinde’s appointment as legislature party leader illegal, says Supreme Court | India News

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday saved the Eknath Shinde government from facing the axe, but unequivocally ruled that the rebel faction’s decision to appoint Shinde as the legislature party leader and the new Speaker’s acceptance of the appointment of Bharat Gogawale as the chief whip were “illegal” as such appointments can be done only by a political party and not by its legislature party or a faction of the MLAs.
On June 21 last year, the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had passed a resolution removing Shinde as leader of its legislature party and appointing Ajay Choudhari in his place. Similarly, the Thakeray-led faction appointed Sunil Prabhu as the chief whip. In contrast, Shinde-rebel MLAs on the same day passed a resolution, while in Guwahati, continuing Shinde as the legislature party leader and appointing Gogawale as the chief whip, which the new Speaker, elected after the fall of MVA government, accepted on July 3.

Explaining why a political party’s decision in such matters trumps that of the legislature party, a five-judge bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices M R Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha said, “To hold that it is the legislature party which appoints the chief whip would be to sever the figurative umbilical cord which connects a member of the House to the political party.”
Writing the judgment, the CJI said, “It would mean that legislators could rely on the political party for the purpose of setting them up for election, that their campaign would be based on strengths (and weaknesses) of the political party and its promises and policies, that they could appeal to the voters on the basis of their affiliation with the party, but that they can later disconnect themselves entirely from that very party and be able to function as a group of MLAs which no longer owes even a hint of allegiance to the political party. This is not the system of governance that is envisaged by the Constitution. In fact, the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) guards against precisely this outcome.”

“The decision of the Speaker recognising Gogawale as the chief whip of Shiv Sena is illegal because the recognition was based on the resolution of a faction of the SSLP without undertaking an exercise to determine if it was the decision of the political party,” the bench said.
Repelling Shinde-faction’s argument that Article 212 of the Constitution bars the constitutional courts from inquiring into alleged irregular procedure adopted by the Speaker to approve appointment of Gogawale as whip, the SC said the Article cannot be interpreted as placing all procedural infringements beyond the pale of judicial review. “Such an interpretation would completely disregard the importance of legislative processes in a constitutional democracy,” it said.