MUMBAI, Jan. 7 -- Eight Mumbai residents on Tuesday moved the Bombay High Court, alleging that a polling official refused to accept their nomination forms for the municipal elections as independent candidates in four south Mumbai wards due to the direct interference of Maharashtra assembly speaker and Colaba MLA Rahul Narwekar. The petitioners have urged the court to direct returning officer Krushna Jadhav to accept their nominations, as well as those of other aspirants who had paid the deposits and obtained tokens before the December 30 deadline. Alleging that the returning officer acted at the behest of Narwekar, who was present in his office on the last day for filing nomination forms, the petitioners have also sought an inquiry into the entire episode. After seeking an urgent hearing ahead of the polls on January 15, the petitioners were told by a division bench of chief justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Akhand that the matter would be listed within the next four working days. The petitioners-Baban Mahadik, Niraj Rathod, Vaishali Gawade, Mahabub Imam Hussain, Parichay Bhoir, Manoj More, Rakhsana Ahmad Shafik Shaikh and Margaret Da Costa-stated that they had obtained nomination forms for contesting the elections from wards 224, 225, 226 and 227. They said they appeared before the returning officer in the afternoon of December 30, well before the 5 pm deadline. Their forms underwent preliminary scrutiny, they paid the deposits and obtained tokens, they added. However, they were allegedly made to wait, along with several other independent candidates, from 1.30 pm to 8.30 pm. The petition alleged that Narwekar visited the returning officer's office multiple times that day and "directed him not to take the nomination forms". Eventually, the police forced them to step out of the office around 8.30 pm, the petition said. "Shri Rahul Narwekar thereby interfered with the free and fair elections by misusing his political power and position as a Speaker of Vidhan Sabha and thereby forced the police machinery to throw these candidates out of the premises of the Election Returning Officer after much waiting," the petition stated. The petitioners also claimed that several independent candidates who wished to contest the civic elections did not come forward to lodge complaints, as the "said MLA" had threatened many of them to refrain from filling nomination forms. They alleged that the returning officer's actions helped Narwekar's relatives-his brother Makrand Narwekar, contesting from ward 226; his sister-in-law Harshita Narwekar, contesting from ward 225; and his cousin Gauravi Shivalkar, contesting from ward 227-get elected unopposed, thereby depriving the petitioners of their valuable right to contest the election. They added that detailed written complaints submitted to the State Election Commission on January 1 have elicited no response so far....