AGENCIES / NEW DELHI
The Supreme Court will pass an order on the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress combine’s plea against the Maharashtra governor’s decision to swear in Devendra Fadnavis as chief minister tomorrow morning.
The Centre today maintained that the BJP had the support of all 54 NCP MLAs to form a government in Maharashtra and asked the Supreme Court for two to three days to reply to the plea against Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s decision.
The Centre told a bench comprising Justices N V Ramana, Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna that the governor had in absolute discretion invited the largest party to form government on 23rd November.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the top court the Maharashtra governor is not supposed to conduct a roving and fishing inquiry to ascertain which party has the numbers to form government.
The solicitor general explained that the governor had invited Shiv Sena, BJP and NCP for government formation and President’s rule was imposed only after they failed.
As the hearing began this morning, Mehta submitted letters of the governor and Fadnavis as asked by the bench yesterday.
The apex court, after perusing Koshyari’s letter inviting Fadnavis, said it has to be decided whether or not the chief minister enjoys majority support on the floor of house.
Appearing for the Shiv Sena, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said, the combine has affidavits from 154 Maharashtra MLAs and the BJP should be asked to prove its majority within 24 hours if it has the numbers.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the NCP and the Congress, termed it a fraud of the worst kind and asked whether a single NCP MLA told Ajit Pawar that he supported him to go with the BJP.
The Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP had filed a plea against the governor’s decision to swear in BJP leader Fadnavis as chief minister and NCP’s Ajit Pawar as deputy chief minister in the early hours of Saturday.