Chandigarh Mayor polls: Supreme Court grills Returning Officer, calls for ballot papers; says it is “disturbed” by horse-trading

“This is a very serious matter. All that you say .. if any falsehood you will be prosecuted … Why were you looking into the camera and putting marks in the ballot papers?” asked CJI Chandrachud.

Masih who was present in court replied that he was “just marking” the ballot papers that were defaced, and that he happened to look at one of many CCTV cameras in the counting area.

Masih added that he had made the marks on eight ballot papers, only to set them apart. The CJI was not convinced by the RO’s explanation.

“You can sign the ballot papers … Why were ticking or putting X on those ballot papers?… Which rule says that you can put ticks or X in those ballot papers? … He (Masih) has to be prosecuted. In an electoral democracy, this cannot be allowed,” the CJI remarked.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was hearing a plea by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Kuldeep Kumar challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s refusal to grant an immediate stay on the election result in which a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate was declared elected as the Chandigarh Mayor.

Notably, the mayor so elected resigned yesterday and three of the AAP Councillors defected to the BJP.

This development was hinted at by the Court today when CJI Chandrachud expressed concerns over “horse-trading.”

“We are disturbed with the horse-trading which had taken place,” the CJI said.

For the present, the Court ordered the production of the ballot papers (presently in the custody of the High Court) as well as the video of the counting process in the mayoral polls.

“We will ask High Court Registrar General to depute a person and submit all the records before us tomorrow. We will list this tomorrow and see the ballot papers and decide what to do … This whole business of horse trading which is going on is very disturbing. Let the entire video of counting of the votes be also produced tomorrow noon,” the Court said.

The Court’s ensuing order stated:

“The ballot papers which are placed in custody of Registrar General (of the High Court) be produced before this Court by a judicial officer by tomorrow 2 PM. The necessary security arrangement shall be made to ensure safe transit and proper preservation and custody of ballot papers along with judicial officers.”

The Returning Officer Anil Masih was ordered to be present personally in Court tomorrow as well.

The bench further called for the appointment of a new returning officer for the municipal polls, who is “not associated to any political party” before the election process is allowed to resume.

The Registrar General of Punjab and Haryana High Court would be tasked to oversee the process of counting, etc., the top court added.

Earlier, BJP’s Manoj Sonkar was elected as Mayor on January 30 after he bagged 16 votes against the 12 votes received by the Congress-AAP candidate Kumar.

This was despite the fact that the AAP-Congress alliance had a majority in the house with 20 members. Eight votes were rejected in the process as invalid, which constituted votes of the AAP-Congress alliance.

Kuldeep Kumar initially approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court for relief and a probe in the matter, alleging fraud in BJP’s win and forgery in the rejection of the eight votes.

However, the High Court only issued notice and listed the matter for hearing after three weeks but refused to stay the polls.

Kumar then moved the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the operation of the notification issued for the appointment of Sonkar as the Mayor.

During the last hearing, the Supreme Court had taken strong exception to the RO’s conduct after noting that he could clearly be seen defacing the ballot papers on video to influence the election results.

Advocate General of Punjab Gurminder Singh, Advocates RPS Bara, Ferry Sofat, Kuldeep Kaur appeared in the case for the petitioner-AAP councillor.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Chandigarh administration.