The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) to hold the counting of votes for all the local body polls on December 21, instead of December 3.
The court also prohibited exit polls until December 20.
The HC's directive came on a day when voting was underway for elections to 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Maharashtra. The SEC last week rescheduled the polls in 24 local bodies to December 20 due to certain apparent irregularities in the process.
The high court was hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the SEC's November 29 revised schedule.
One of the petitions challenged the postponement of polls for one division of the Chandrapur Municipal Council to December 20.
But the revised programme has permitted polling and declaration of results for the remaining 26 wards and the counting to proceed as per the original schedule.
However, one of the petitioners, social activist Sachin Chute, pleaded that the declaration of results should "be conducted on a single date and not in a staggered or bifurcated manner".
The petition claimed that the poll body's order "violated the fundamental principle that elections must be free, fair and provide a level playing field to all candidates".
Chute's lawyer, Yash Kullarwar, argued that results for all wards should be declared simultaneously.
Senior lawyer Firdos Mirza, appearing for one of the petitioners, told PTI that the HC has deferred the counting of votes for the local body elections to December 21.
The high court will further hear the petitions against the SEC's revised election programme on December 10.
The first phase of voting for 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats was underway on Tuesday.
However, elections to 24 local bodies were postponed to December 20 in view of judicial appeals filed against the decisions of returning officers following the scrutiny of nomination papers.
The SEC's decision, announced on Saturday, comes in light of irregularities observed in the election process of some local bodies, including the timeline for withdrawal of nominations and allocation of election symbols.
The SEC said in several cases, the appeal verdicts from the district court were delivered after November 22, or in some instances, candidates did not get the three-day period to withdraw nomination papers as per Rule 17(1)(b) of the Maharashtra Municipalities Election Rules, 1966.
As a result, the subsequent action of allocating election symbols on or after November 26 by returning officers was deemed illegal in these cases.
The SEC has therefore stayed (postponed) the current election process in such affected civic bodies.