The Supreme Court on Monday extended the deadline for Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide the Sharad Pawar faction's plea seeking disqualification of NCP MLAs belonging to the bloc led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar till February 15.

The top court had on October 30 last year directed the speaker to decide the petition of Jayant Patil of the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) seeking disqualification of the nine MLAs of the Ajit Pawar group by January 31, 2024.

On the same day, it had also directed the speaker to decide the cross-petitions filed by the rival factions of the Shiv Sena seeking disqualification of each other's MLAs by December 31.

During a brief hearing on Monday, a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the request of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the speaker, seeking three more weeks for passing the order on the disqualification plea. Mehta referred to the recent order passed by the speaker on the disqualification petitions filed by the rival Sena factions and said the cross-examination of the respondents was yet to be completed. He said it will be over by January 31 and prayed for three weeks more to be granted for passing the order. The law officer said the speaker had been busy dealing with the petitions filed by the feuding Shiv Sena factions. The proceedings in the NCP's case, he said, are otherwise over and the speaker realistically needed some more time for writing the order.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the Sharad Pawar faction, said the speaker can be granted one more week to complete the exercise instead of three being sought by him.

"In his order dated January 25, the speaker has indicated that cross-examination of the witnesses for respondents (NCP factions) could not be concluded and with consent of the parties following time schedule is prescribed and that matter will end on January 31 for orders.

"We grant time till February 15, 2024 to finish dictation of the orders (by the speaker)," the bench said in its order.

The rift in the party came to the fore when a faction of the NCP led by Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel rebelled against its patriarch Sharad Pawar and joined the Eknath Shinde government.

Ajit Pawar became the deputy chief minister and 8 MLAs of his camp were sworn as ministers in July 2023.

A plea was filed by Jayant Patil for a direction to the speaker to expeditiously decide the disqualification petitions against Ajit Pawar and MLAs loyal to him.

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