The Supreme Court while declining to overthrow the Eknath Shinde-led government in Maharashtra ruled that the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA administration would have had an opportunity to be reinstated had the then CM not resigned a day before the "illegal" floor test on June 30 last year.
The court ruled that among the mistakes made by the then-governor B S Koshyari during those turbulent times in Mumbai, the choice to call Shinde to form the government was the only one that was made correctly. This includes the instruction to ask Uddhav to undergo the floor test, according to the court.
In what could fit the classic “operation successful, patient dead” scenario, a 5-judge bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices M R Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha rejected the plea of petitioners from the Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena for restoration of status quo ante despite castigating the then governor for asking Thackeray to face the floor test when he had no “objective material” to conclude the MVA government had prima facie lost majority support.
CJI Chandrachud said, “This argument (from Thackeray faction for his restoration as CM) does not account for the fact that Thackeray did not face the floor test and instead resigned. This court cannot quash a resignation. ”
“Had Thackeray refrained from resigning from the post of the CM, this court could have considered the grant of remedy of reinstating the government headed by him. The order of this court on June 29, 2022 held that the outcome of the trust vote to be conducted on June 30, 2022, ‘shall be subject to the final outcome’ of this batch of petitions. Since the trust vote was not held, the question of it being subject to the final outcome of these petitions does not arise,” the CJI said.
Notwithstanding the severe criticism of the then governor for depending on extraneous material and acting beyond his powers to unconstitutionally ask the then CM to face an illegal floor test, the bench was unanimous that after Thackeray resigned, the governor had no option but to call Shinde to form government as he had produced letters of support from majority of MLAs.