The Supreme Court on Friday expressed strong displeasure at Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar’s perceived defiance of its orders to decide within a timeframe the disqualification pleas raised against chief minister Eknath Shinde and others by the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud asked solicitor-general Tushar Mehta and the state’s advocate-general to take up the matter with the Speaker and revert to it by Tuesday.

“We issued notice in June…. The Speaker has not taken any steps.... These hearings before the tribunal should not be reduced to a charade. These are serious proceedings,” Justice Chandrachud observed.

The CJI added: “The reason why we don’t set a time schedule is because we respect that it is an extension of the legislative government. But if he doesn’t do it then we must hold them accountable. We pay deference to all branches of government. But the writ of this court has to run when we see that there is a failure of this court’s mandate.”

“Mr Solicitor, by Monday if we don’t find that a proper time schedule is set out, we will pass an order. We are concerned about two things — our order is not being followed…. The decision should be taken at least before the next election. The idea should not be let this go on merrily and let the matter become infructuous.

“You and the advocate-general of Maharashtra speak with the Speaker... come back to us on Monday. We don’t want this rigmarole of someone filed this or that,” CJI Chandrachud said.

However, upon a request from Mehta, the court listed the matter for hearing on Tuesday.

The bench, which included Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said: “Mr Solicitor-General, somebody has to advise the Speaker. He cannot defeat the orders of the Supreme Court. Last time we thought better sense would prevail. The idea of schedule we had suggested should not be to indefinitely delay the hearing. Because then their (the Uddhav faction’s) apprehension is correct.

“He must give the impression that he is taking the matter seriously. Since June there is no action in the matter. There has to be a hearing.”

The bench was dealing with a batch of petitions filed by the Uddhav faction of the Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP seeking a direction to the Speaker to expeditiously decide disqualification proceedings against Shinde and some MLAs who broke away from the Shiv Sena to form the government with the BJP.