Ajit Pawar faction to use ‘clock’ symbol but with disclaimer: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday said that the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) must include a disclaimer while using the “clock” symbol as directed by the top court earlier, PTI reported.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Surya Kant made the observation while hearing a plea filed by the NCP faction led by veteran leader Sharad Pawar over the use of the “clock” symbol.
The Sharad Pawar-led faction approached the top court, alleging that the Ajit Pawar-led group was not complying with its previous order regarding the use of a disclaimer.
During Thursday’s hearing, Justice Surya Kant issued notice to the deputy chief minister and others while seeking their replies to the plea.
The court also directed the Ajit Pawar faction to file a fresh undertaking over its March 19 and April 4 directions to issue a public notice saying ‘NCP’s ‘clock’ symbol is sub-judice’, was being meticulously complied with even during the process of the state assembly elections, according to PTI.
“Please file a fresh undertaking that you (Ajit Pawar camp) will not violate our directions till the end of the elections,” the bench told the faction, according to India Today. “Don’t create an embarrassing situation for yourselves. If we find there is a deliberate attempt to violate our order, we can initiate suo motu contempt.”
On March 19, the bench had allowed the Ajit group to keep both the NCP name and ‘clock’ symbol, though with a caveat that the deputy CM’s side will give public notices in leading English, Marathi, and Hindi dailies, informing the public that the allocation of the ‘clock’ symbol is subject to the outcome of the petition heard by the court.
The issue stems from the vertical split in the NCP in July last year, when the party, co-founded by Ajit’s uncle Sharad Pawar in June 1999 after the latter was expelled from the Congress, witnessed a vertical split into two groups, with the uncle and the nephew leading one faction each.
The united NCP was a constituent of the three-party opposition alliance, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) along with the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT); upon split, the Ajit camp joined the ruling coalition of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena.
In February this year, the Election Commission of India (ECI) recognised the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the ‘real NCP’ and gave it the original ‘clock’ symbol. It is this recognition that Sharad Pawar has challenged in the Supreme Court.