'Process flawed': Apex court halts MMC election midway

The Supreme Court on Thursday halted polling for nine seats in the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) and rapped the state government for going ahead with the poll by replacing the returning officer hours earlier, after the court stayed election process on Wednesday.

- HT Correspondent

MUMBAI:

"It need not be over-emphasised that the returning officer is the main person who has to conduct the elections, but in the present case, he has absolutely no role to play," the bench of justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Prashant Kumar Mishra said while halting polling, which had commenced at around 150 polling booths across Maharashtra at 8am on Thursday.

As reported by HT, the Supreme Court had on Wednesday, acting on a special leave petition filed by MMC member Dr Sachin Pawar, stayed the election to nine seats in the council, which was scheduled for Thursday. This was primarily on grounds that the returning officer, Shilpa Parab, registrar of the Maharashtra Dental Council, was not of under secretary rank, in contravention of rule six of the MMC Rules, 2002, which stipulate that an officer not below the rank of under secretary must be appointed as returning officer.

Hours later, the medical education department replaced Parab with Sunil Dhonde, under secretary with the department, and declared that polling would go ahead as scheduled.