MUMBAI: 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.
“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.
On Thursday, Dr Pawar’s counsel pointed out in the apex court that voting had already commenced at 11am, to which the court said that its order on Wednesday had been misinterpreted by state authorities. Replacing the returning officer hours ahead of voting was inappropriate, the court said and halted the election.
The bench will now take up Dr Pawar’s petition for further hearing on April 7, when things are likely to become clear regarding the conduct of elections.
Dr Pawar had initially moved the Bombay high court over the appointment of Parab as returning officer and the deletion of around 70,000 doctors’ names from the voters’ list. The high court had, on March 20, dismissed the petition after accepting arguments advanced on behalf of the state government.
The government had claimed that Parab was no longer associated with the MMC and her appointment as in-charge registrar was made on the same day when she was appointed as returning officer for the MMC polls and the latter was subsequently withdrawn. Parab was also not concerned with the preparation of the voters’ list for the election, the government had said.
The medical council is comprised of 18 members, of which nine are elected from among registered medical practitioners while the remaining nine members are nominated by the state government and educational institutions.
