Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. , Photo credit: PTI
The Supreme Court on Wednesday (Nov 12, 2025) fixed January 21 to hear the complaints filed by the Shiv Sena faction led by Uddhav Thackeray against the Election Commission’s order allotting the ‘bow and arrow’ symbol to faction-led Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said it will begin hearing arguments on the Shiv Sena symbol dispute from January 21. The bench will then hear arguments on a similar dispute involving the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on January 22 as there are several overlapping issues in both the cases, it said.
The Supreme Court also fixed three hours to hear the arguments of each faction of the political parties.
Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, appearing for the Udhav faction, said the matters required an urgent hearing as there were local polls in the state. Justice Kant said political parties are always in election mode in India as they contest national elections, state polls or even local elections.
Senior advocates mukul rohatgi and neeraj kissan kaul appeared for the shinde faction.
On July 14, the High Court ordered the matter for final hearing, stating that the matter has been pending for a long time and the uncertainty cannot continue. The Uddhav faction challenged the Election Commission’s order on February 17 that assigned the name “Shiv Sena” and its voting symbol “bow and arrow” to the group led by Mr. Shinde.
Thackeray’s faction has also challenged the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker’s decision to hand over the party’s name and symbol to the opposing faction on the grounds that the legislative majority says it is against the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench verdict.
On May 7, the Supreme Court asked the Thackeray-led faction to focus on local polls after the party sought an urgent hearing on its challenge to the Speaker’s decision.
In January 2024, Speaker Rahul Narwekar rejected Shiv Sena-UBT’s plea to disqualify 16 MLAs including Shinde from the ruling camp.
Thackeray’s faction challenged the orders issued by the chief justice saying they were “manifestly illegal and perverse” and instead of punishing the act of defection, they rewarded the defectors by believing them to be a genuine political party.
The speaker, the suit alleged, erred in asserting that the majority of Shiv Sena legislators represented the will of the Shiv Sena party.
In his ruling on the disqualification petitions, the speaker did not disqualify any MLA belonging to rival camps.
The speaker’s decision further cemented Shinde’s position as the then chief minister, 18 months after he led a rebellion against Mr Thackeray, and added to his political strength in the ruling coalition that also included the BJP and the NCP (Ajit Pawar’s group) ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly elections.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Shinde faction won seven seats. In the Maharashtra polls, the party won 57 seats, the BJP won 132 seats, while the Ajit Pawar-led NCP won 41 seats.
By December 2024, Devendra Fadnavis was back as Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Shinde and Pawar as Deputy Chief Ministers.
Published – 12 Nov 2025 16:47 IST
