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Notably, Senior Advocate AM Singhvi had told court that the Sharad Pawar faction wanted that both parties should use a non-clock symbol. "Sharad Pawar has created this whole organisation..people would vote for the clock symbol thinking it is Sharad Pawar..", the court was told.
The Supreme Court has allowed Ajit Pawar led NCP faction to provisionally use the clock symbol for its party. Furthermore, Court has 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.
ECI has been further asked to allow the Sharad Pawar faction to use the symbol of a man blowing a trumpet.
"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 has also ordered.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and KV Vishwanathan has added that the Ajit Pawar NCP's undertaking submitted before court that it would not use the name and pictures of Sharad Pawar in election posters will apply not just to the State of Maharashtra but also to other States for the purpose of Lok Sabha elections.
Court had last week asked the Ajit Pawar led faction of NCP to file an undertaking before it that it would not use Sharad Pawar's pictures in its posters.
Sharad Pawar had approached the Supreme Court a few days back 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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