The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay Election Commission‘s February 17 order recognising the Eknath Shinde faction as the real Shiv Sena and permitting it to use the party’s bow and arrow symbol.

A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, however, issued notice on a plea filed by the Uddhav Thackeray faction challenging the EC order and ordered listing of the case after two weeks.

The bench permitted the Thackeray faction to retain the name ‘Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’ and the symbol ‘flaming torch’ in view of the EC order. EC had allowed this interim arrangement in view of Maharashtra bypolls slated for February 26. The Shinde faction gave a verbal undertaking that it would not take precipitative action against the Thackeray faction by issuing disqualification proceedings.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Thackeray faction, sought status quo by arguing that the offices and bank accounts of the party are being taken over by the Shinde group. The bench, however, refused to pass any directions in this regard.

Speaking for the bench, the CJI remarked that EC’s order under challenge “does not contain anything regarding bank accounts or properties”. He said: “Something which is a part of the order we can certainly look into. This does not form part of the order. EC order is confined to the allotment of the symbol. Now, they have succeeded before EC. We cannot pass an order which has the effect of staying it without hearing them.”

“Ultimately there is a contractual relationship within a political party,” the CJI added, saying that for any further action not based on EC order, the Thackeray faction will have to “exhaust other remedies available in law”.

At the outset, senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, representing the Shinde faction, raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the Thackeray faction’s plea. He argued the Thackeray faction should first approach the concerned high court. Kaul said the Thackeray faction on previous occasions had approached the Delhi High Court against EC’s interim orders.In a related development, the Thackeray faction, before a 5-judge bench, trained its guns on the Maharashtra governor for “legitimising defections in Shiv Sena”. Sibal said “there was a certain taint against those defected members pending. The governor could have said he knows about the disqualification notice. That is the conditional path he should have adopted…” He said the governor revived the concept of a split and gave it legitimacy.