The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred to January 22 the hearing on a plea of the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena against the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker's order declaring the Sena bloc led by CM Eknath Shinde as "real political party" after its split in June 2022.

The plea, which was filed on Monday by the Thackeray faction, was fixed by the apex court registry for hearing by a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on January 19.

The bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, was urged by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Thackeray group, that the hearing be held on Monday next week instead of this Friday.

"We will hear it on Monday," the CJI said.

On January 15, the Thackeray faction, through lawyer Rohit Sharma, had moved the top court challenging the January 10 decision of the speaker declaring the Sena bloc led by Shinde as the "real political party".

Maharashtra speaker Rahul Narwekar had also rejected the Thackeray faction's plea to disqualify 16 MLAs of the ruling camp, including Shinde.

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