New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said Uddhav Thackeray can not be reinstated as the Maharashtra chief minister because he resigned from the post but the floor test which in the case of Maharashtra toppled the Uddhav Thackeray-led government was not legal either. The Governor, BS Koshyari, erred as he concluded that Uddhav lost the majority in the House, the Supreme Court said in a crucial judgment. Floor test can not be used as a medium to resolve inter- or intra-party disputes, the Supreme Court observed.
The Supreme Court observed that Devendra Fadnavis and the independent MLAs did not move a no-confidence motion and the governor’s “exercise of discretion was not in accordance of the law”.
The apex court pronounced a verdict on a batch of petitions related to the 2022 Maharashtra political crisis that saw Eknath Shinde taking over as Chief Minister from Uddhav Thackeray following a split in the Shiv Sena. It criticised the Maharashtra Speaker’s decision to appoint Gogawale (Shinde group) as chief Whip of the Shiv Sena party as illegal.
It referred the 2016 Nabam Rebia five-judge verdict related to the power of speaker on disqualification of MLAs to a larger bench The top court.
