SC judgment on Maharashtra floor test today

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will pass an order at 10.30 am on Tuesday on the plea filed by the Shiv Sena-NCPCongress combine against the Maharashtra governor’s decision to swear in Devendra Fadnavis as chief minister and seeking a floor test in the Maharashtra Assembly within 24 hours to ascertain whether the BJP government has the majority support it claims to have.

The three parties had approached the court on Sunday, praying that the floor test be ordered on Monday itself. This was opposed by Mr Fadnavis and his deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar.

The court had on Sunday directed the Centre to place before it the letter by Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari inviting Devendra Fadnavis to form the government and also the letter submitted by Mr Fadnavis claiming majority support.

A bench of Justices N.V. Ramana, Ashok Bhushan and Sanjeev Khanna reserved the order on the plea by the three parties, which have formed and had, hours before Saturday’s revocation of President’s Rule and swearing-in of Mr Fadnavis along with Ajit Pawar of the NCP as his deputy, declared Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray as their leader.

When Mr Fadnavis was sworn in as chief minister at 7.30 am on

After Devendra Fadnavis’ lawyer handed the letter of support by 54 MLAs of the NCP and 11 others, including Independents, to the court, Justice Bhushan said, ‘The list of 54 MLAs nowhere says that they are supporting Mr Fadnavis...’

■ Continued from Page 1 November 23, after the revocation of President’s Rule at 5.47 am, the governor had granted him seven days to prove his majority in the House, which falls on November 30. Solicitorgeneral Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the secretary to the governor, handed over the letter inviting Mr Fadnavis to form the government and said that the governor had administered the oath to Mr Fadnavis after he claimed the support of 170 newlyelected lawmakers — 105 of the BJP, 54 of the Nationalist Congress Party and another 11 Independents and MLAs belonging to other parties.

While recalling the sequence of events since October 24, when the results of the Maharashtra Assembly elections were declared, he also said that the governor was immune to the proceedings in the Supreme Court. After perusing Mr Koshyari’s letter inviting Mr Fadnavis, the bench said it has to be decided whether the chief minister enjoyed a majority on the floor of the House.

Appearing for the CM, BJP and Independent MLAs, Mukul Rohatgi said that Mr Fadnavis went to governor Koshyari with the letter of support from deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and added that “it is nobody’s case that documents are forged or falsified”. After he handed over the letter of support by 54 MLAs of the NCP and 11 others, including Independents, to the court, Justice Bhushan said: “The list of 54 MLAs nowhere says that they are supporting Devendra Fadnavis… They never said that they are supporting Devendra Fadnavis.”

Leaving nothing to doubt, Justice Khanna added that the “question today is very, very limited — whether chief minister (Fadnavis) enjoys majority support and for that there has to be a floor test”, a position conforming to the 1984 judgment by a nine-judge Constitution Bench which had, in the S.R. Bommai case, said whether a chief minster has majority support or not can only be tested on the floor of the state Assembly. Maintaining that the BJP had the support of all 54 NCP MLAs, Mr Mehta sought two to three days’ time to file a response to the petition filed by the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress.