Maharashtra: No relief in PIL against voice vote

The Bombay high court on Wednesday refused to grant interim relief to a PIL challenging the controversial vote of confidence obtained by the BJP government in state assembly last week.

A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice BP Colabawalla said it would not be possible to grant any interim relief at this juncture and posted the PIL for hearing along with two other PILs on the same issue on November 28.

The PIL, filed by social activist Sanjay Lakhe Patil and journalist Sanjay Chitnis, had prayed for an interim relief that the BJP government should be declared as caretaker government and it should be restrained from taking any decision until the issue of its obtaining trust vote has been decided by the HC.

The Devendra Fadnavis government won the confidence motion through a voice vote, a process which invited sharp criticism from the opposition Shiv Sena and Congress. This is the third petition on the trust vote issue.

The PIL says that the BJP government needed support of 145 MLAs to win the confidence motion in the 288-member Assembly (current strength is 287). As it could not muster the support of 145 MLAs, the motion was taken by a voice vote and made to appear as if the Government had the majority support in the House, they said.

All three petitions seek direction quashing the confidence motion passed in the Assembly on November 12. However, the BJP, which has 121 MLAs and claims to have support of some Independents and legislators from smaller parties, has been defending the manner in which the trust vote was passed.