NEW DELHI: The Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena factions reiteration that the Supreme Courts June 27, 2022 order offering more time to Eknath Shinde-led rebel MLAs emboldened them to fall of the MVA government with unconstitutional assistance from the guv drew a sharp response on Wednesday from the Constitution bench, which blamed it on the then deputy speakers unreasonable action.Senior advocate Kapil Sibal stated that if the court had on June 27 not provided the rebel MLAs, sitting in Guwahati, time till July 12 to respond to the disqualification petitions, they all would have been disqualified and the MVA government would have continued.

As these rebel MLAs clearly defied the party whip, they were per se (ex facie) disqualified, for this reason, there was no need of anymore proof, he said.

The guv, despite knowing that Shinde dealt with per se disqualification under anti-defection law, did an unconstitutional act of welcoming him to form federal government, he said.The bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices M R Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha stated, The SC may not have stepped in on June 27 had the deputy speaker not provided an unreasonable two days time for them to respond to the disqualification petitions as versus the standard of 7 days.

In any case, it is the Speaker who ought to be choosing the disqualification and not the courts.

The bench stated, You have actually made a considerable point about constitutional democracy and the supremacy of a political celebration over its members in your house.

But if the courts begin choosing disqualification of MLAs at the first instance, instead of the Speaker, it would have very serious ramifications.

This holds true even for a case where an MLA is per se disqualified un-der the Tenth Schedule.

This proposition is extremely disquieting for us.

Right or wrong, there is a system in location appointing the Speaker the task of adjudicating the disqualification petitions.

Can the courts breach the established constitutional system? Arguments will continue on Thursday.