India, Dec. 31 -- In a late-evening hearing held at the chief justice's residence on Tuesday, the Bombay High Court restrained the commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) from requisitioning staff of the subordinate courts for election duty. The court directed the municipal commissioner, who is also the district election officer, to file a personal affidavit explaining the power and jurisdiction under which he had issued such directions in the previous week.

A division bench of chief justice Shree Chandrashekhar and justice Ashwin Bhobe took up the matter suo motu after the registry placed records before the chief justice earlier in the day. The records showed that the municipal commissioner, in his capacity as the d...