Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena has moved the Bombay High Court to challenge the decision taken by the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker, who declined to disqualify 14 MLAs belonging to the rival faction headed by former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

On January 12, Bharat Gogavale, the chief whip of the ruling Shiv Sena, filed petitions challenging the "legality, propriety, and correctness" of Speaker Rahul Narwekar's January 10 order. The order dismissed the disqualification petitions submitted by Gogavale against 14 MLAs aligned with the rival camp in the Assembly.

Within the petitions, Mr. Gogavale argued that the MLAs associated with the Thackeray group not only contravened party directives but also relinquished their membership in the Shiv Sena political party voluntarily through their actions and omissions subsequent to a split in June 2022.

The petitions contended that the Speaker overlooked the fact that the members of Sena-UBT not only renounced their membership but also voted against the Shiv Sena-led government in collaboration with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). This collective action was perceived as an attempt to overthrow the existing ruling dispensation.

As per the high court's website, Mr Gogavale's petitions would be taken up for hearing on January 22.

Earlier, Gogavale approached the High Court, while on the following Monday, the Thackeray faction lodged a petition in the Supreme Court contesting the Speaker's order that affirmed the Sena group led by Chief Minister Shinde as the legitimate political party following their split in June 2022.

The Speaker had also rejected the Thackeray faction's plea to disqualify 16 MLAs of the ruling camp, including Mr. Shinde.