India, April 4 -- 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 ...