The long-awaited hearing on the disqualification petitions involving Shiv Sena members is set to commence on Thursday, September 14.
Earlier, the Speaker of the state legislative assembly, Rahul Narvekar, had issued notices to all 56 Shiv Sena MLAs prior to the monsoon session, seeking their responses. Following an extension period of a couple of weeks for filing replies, members from CM Shinde's camp submitted an extensive volume of responses, with each reply spanning around 6,000 pages. Narvekar clarified that the hearing would commence after a thorough review of the replies. Consequently, officials from the assembly secretariat have confirmed that the hearing process is slated to begin on the specified date.
As the decision-making process regarding the disqualification petitions follows a quasi-judicial procedure, Speaker Narvekar will now proceed to hold in-person hearings with all the MLAs who submitted written replies to the notices. It's been reported that the Speaker has invited all MLAs for a hearing on September 14, and it's expected that he will conduct these hearings in a single day. Given that each MLA received an individual notice, each hearing will be conducted separately for every MLA.
Once the hearing begins, the issues will be framed, and further explanations will be sought from the concerned MLAs. This implies that the decision will still take a considerable amount of time to be reached. Nonetheless, the MLAs will find satisfaction in the fact that the process has progressed one step further.