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The confusion is writ large and very fairly they should also be directed to apply for a fresh symbol, Sharad Pawar's counsel told the top court today
The Supreme Court has today directed the Ajit Pawar led faction of NCP to issue a public notice in the newspapers in English, Marathi, Hindi editions notifying that the allocation of the 'clock' symbol is sub judice as per its March 19 order.
"An exclusive disclaimer be put in 36 hours. The needful should be done. Follow the same pattern we had given earlier", a Justice Surya Kant led bench said today.
"Half evidence given to court, pictures are cropped and presented...We have filed out nominations..in the next two days these undertakings would be published..", Senior Advocate Balbir Singh told the top court today.
In response, the counsel for Sharad Pawar submitted, "They have done a pasting job on their posters..they can now give an undertaking and correct everything, but on ground, bad faith actors are showing superimposed pictures of ajit pawar....the solution given by this court has not been followed by the past 6 months".
On March 19, the Supreme Court had allowed Ajit Pawar led NCP faction to provisionally use the clock symbol for its party. Furthermore, Court had directed the Election Commission of India to provisionally recognise the NCP led by Sharad Pawar for the purpose of contesting upcoming Lok Sabha and state elections.
"The respondents (Ajit Pawar faction) are directed to issue a public notice in the newspapers in English, Marathi, Hindi editions notifying that the allocation of the 'clock' symbol is sub judice and the respondents shall be permitted to use the same subject to the final outcome of the proceedings." the Court had also ordered.
Sharad Pawar approached the Supreme Court challenging the ECI's decision in favour of Ajit Pawar, who broke away from the Sharad Pawar camp to join the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra with eight NCP MLAs.
The ECI had ruled that Ajit Pawar's faction was the real NCP and permitted the faction to use the 'clock' symbol for the party. In its order, ECI said total number of NCP MLAs in Maharashtra State assembly stood at 81, out of which, Ajit Pawar submitted affidavits of 57 MLAs in his support while Sharad Pawar had only 28 affidavits.
Notably, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar also recognized the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the legitimate NCP and dismissed all disqualification petitions against both the Sharad Pawar faction and the Ajit Pawar faction.
The Speaker's decision acknowledged that the Ajit Pawar faction had the support of the majority of MLAs and further noted that the collective dissent would remain a dissent within the political party even when it began to be raised publicly.
Case Title: Sharad Pawar vs. Ajit Pawar
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