The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday ordered the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct the counting of votes for all ongoing local body elections on December 21 instead of December 3. The court also prohibited the publication of exit polls until December 20.
The order came on a day when voting was underway for 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats across Maharashtra. The SEC had already postponed elections in 24 civic bodies to December 20 after pointing to irregularities in the scrutiny and withdrawal stages.
The bench was hearing multiple petitions challenging the SEC’s revised schedule of November 29. One of the pleas questioned the postponement of polling for a division of the Chandrapur Municipal Council to December 20 while allowing polling and result declaration for the remaining 26 wards to proceed as originally planned.
Petitioner Sachin Chute, a social activist, argued that announcing results on different dates would undermine fairness. Represented by advocate Yash Kullarwar, he said that “the declaration of results should be conducted on a single date and not in a staggered or bifurcated manner,” as staggered results could disturb the level playing field for candidates.
Senior advocate Firdos Mirza, appearing in another connected matter, said the court has now deferred the counting across all local bodies to December 21 to avoid discrepancies.
The high court also noted the SEC’s explanation behind rescheduling polls in 24 bodies. According to the commission, several appeal orders from district courts were delivered after November 22, leaving some candidates without the mandatory three-day window to withdraw their nominations under Rule 17(1)(b) of the Maharashtra Municipalities Election Rules, 1966. In such cases, the subsequent allocation of election symbols on or after November 26 was rendered illegal.
To address these irregularities, the SEC stayed the ongoing election process in the affected local bodies and issued fresh dates.
The petitions challenging the revised programme will be heard again on December 10.
