July 2022 — Constitutional Renaissance

July 31, 2022July 31, 2022

Guest Post: Maharashtra Political Crises, Anti-Defection Law and the Supreme Court

Amongst bigger states, after Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, the Maharashtra post-poll alliance named Maha-Vikas Aghadi between Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress has fell prey to defection. Shiv Sena won 55 seats in the 2019 Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra and formed a post-poll alliance with the NCP and the Congress to form the government under the leadership of Shiv Sena party supremo, Uddhav Thackeray. However, after an internal rift, senior Shiv Sena party leader Eknath Shinde along with 40 MLA’s split from the Shiv Sena and formed the government with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)—with which Shiv Sena had a pre-poll alliance, and Eknath Shinde took oath as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on 30^th June 2022 by winning the vote of confidence of 164 MLA’s out of 288 in the floor test.

July 19, 2022July 20, 2022

Nupur Sharma gets relief from SC: Notes on clubbing on FIRs and TT Anthony Case

The Supreme court on Tuesday granted interim protection to former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. The court directed that no coercive steps be taken against her in the multiple FIRs registered in different states, over her remarks on Prophet Mohammed during a TV debate. The court also said that the same protection will be available for any FIRs registered in the future in respect to the same telecast. The top court essentially granted her the same protection which she was seeking earlier.