The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Ajit Pawar group after hearing a plea filed by Sharad Pawar group leader Jayant Patil seeking disqualification of the former’s MLAs for defecting and joining the Sena-BJP govt.The two-judge bench of the top court, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, clarified that the contentions about the maintainability of the petition will be decided along with the merits at the stage of final disposal of the case.The Sharad Pawar group had moved the apex court challenging the Maharashtra Speaker’s order rejecting the pleas against the Ajit Pawar group’s MLAs.During the course of the hearing, the apex court also clarified that the appeal of the Sharad Pawar group would be heard later along with the pending petition of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) which challenges the Speaker’s refusal to disqualify the MLAs belonging to the Eknath Shinde group.The apex court said it would take up the matter for further hearing when the Ajit Pawar group files its reply. The court, however, did not fix any date to hear the case, but it is likely that the plea would be heard next after three weeks.”We will issue notice. All the objections including on grounds of maintainability will be decided during the final disposal in the case,” the top court said.It had in its order on March 19 directed the Ajit Pawar faction to issue a public notice in English, Hindi and Marathi media mentioning in all of its campaign advertisements that the ‘clock’ symbol allotted to it is subject to the adjudication of the plea filed by the Sharad Pawar-led faction pending before the SC.The court also directed that the Sharad Pawar group shall only use the name “NCP (Sharad Pawar)” and the symbol “man blowing turha (trumpet)”.
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