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For the second consecutive day, Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA and party’s chief whip in legislative Assembly Sunil Prabhu was cross examined by the lawyer representing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena Wednesday during the hearing of Sena MLAs’ disqualification pleas.
During the cross examination, Shinde-led Sena’s lawyer Mahesh Jethmalaani questioned Prabhu about the whip he claimed to have issued last year on June 21 when a group of MLAs led by Shinde launched rebellion against Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena and went to Surat in Gujarat.
After the hearing Jethmalani alleged that the whole case is based on the claim of whip issued by the Sena UBT and it was defied but no such whip was issued and the whip which Sena UBT is claiming to has been issued is forged one.
“The whip shown by them(Sena UBT in its submission) is bogus. It’s forgery. Their whole disqualification petition is based on that the whip, that was issued on June 21 according to which the MLAs had to attend a meeting but that was not followed. But we have made a ground during the hearing that the whip of Sunil Prabhu was forged one and it was never issued or sent,” Jethmalani said.
Replying to the allegations of Jethmalani, Sena UBT MP Anil Desai said that the whip is issued by a party for its legislators and questioned how can a lawyer raise a question on its validity or call it bogus.
“The whip is genuine and the attempts made by their (Shinde led Sena’s ) lawyer would not be succeeded to prove the whip a bogus one,” Desai said.
During the hearing on Wednesday, Jethmalani questioned Prabhu, about the details of whip which Prabhu claimed to have issued to Sena MLAs to attend the party’s meeting on June 21, 2022.
The cross examination over the whip issued to Sena MLAs holds a lot of significance since the Sena UBT has filed a disqualification petitions against the Sena rebel MLAs claiming that the MLAs defied whip issued by Sena chief Whip to attend the meeting.
However, during the earlier hearing and in the submission in last month, the Shinde-led Sena had claimed that they never received any whip as claimed by Sena UBT and hence there is no question of defying the whip and there is no question of disqualification.
During the hearing the Jethmalani questioned Prabhu about when and how the whip was issued to the MLAs and whether he has received copy of whip from the MLAs, in order to prove that the whip was forged and was not even issued.
While replying to the questions, an official said, Prabhu replied saying that whip was signed and issued him on June 20, 2022. However, it was in the intervening night of June 20 and 21 and hence it was dated June 21 and issued physically to those Sena MLAs who were present in the office and at MLA guest house.
However, those MLAs who were missing or untraceable were sent the whip through WhatsApp, the official quoted Prabhu as saying.
On Tuesday, Sena lawyer had begin cross examination of Prabhu and started recording his statement.
During the cross examination on Tuesday, Prabhu asserted that the Sena MLAs who went to Surat and then Guwahati in June 2022 along with Shinde were under pressure by the BJP and there was a discussion that the MLAs were abducted.
The cross examination will continue for the next couple of days.
Meanwhile Speaker Rahul Narwekar who is holding the hearing, expressed his displeasure over the slow proceeding.
Narwekar said that they have only 16 days of time and with this pace of hearing the adjudication of the matter may be delayed and they may not be able to meet the deadline set by the Supreme Court.
Setting the timeline, the Supreme Court last month directed Narwekar to adjudicate disqualification petitions of rebel Sena MLAs by December 31.
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