In a landmark judgment, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the result of the Chandigarh mayoral polls held recently and declared Aam Aadmi Party candidate Kuldeep Kumar as the Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.
Setting aside the result declared by Returning Officer and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Anil Masih as “unlawful”, the court found him guilty of deliberately defacing ballot papers of votes cast in favour of the AAP candidate in order to make them invalid. The BJP candidate, Manoj Kumar Sonkar, was declared the winner on January 30. The court found that the Presiding Officer tampered with eight votes that were polled in favour of the AAP candidate and declared Kumar as the winner.
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Of the 36 votes cast during the polls, the BJP secured 16 votes while the joint AAP-Congress combine received 12. Eight votes cast in favour of the AAP candidate were declared invalid. During the hearing on Monday, Masih informed the court that he had marked the eight votes since they had already been defaced by the councillors.
However, on examining the ballot papers, the court found Masih’s claim to be false and noted that the ballot papers were not defaced. Regulation 6 of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (Procedure and Conduct of Business) Regulations 1996, a ballot can be invalid only under three circumstances – (1) more than one vote is cast, (2) there is any mark identifying the voter, (3) the marks are placed in an ambiguous manner making it doubtful to whom the vote is cast.
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Since none of the ballot papers qualified to be set aside under the rules of procedure, the court rendered the remarks by the Presiding Officer as inconsequential and ruled that the 8 votes cast in favour of the AAP candidate were to be treated as valid.
On Monday, the officer had claimed that he had marked the ballot papers in order to segregate them since they were already defaced by the councillors. “Yesterday, the Presiding Officer made a solemn statement before this Court that he had done so as the 8 ballots were defaced. It is evident that none of the ballots are defaced,” the court observed further.
Another question before the court was raised through a contention that the resignation of BJP councillor Manoj Sonkar, who was declared the winner on January 30, warranted a fresh election. The court, however, ruled out fresh polls, stating that it would be inappropriate for the court to set aside the entire election process solely because of the misconduct of the Presiding Officer during the counting process.
“We are of the view that setting aside the entire election process is inappropriate as the only infirmity is found in the counting process. Setting aside of the entire election process will compound the destruction of the democratic principles which happened due to the conduct of the Presiding Officer,” the top court observed.
The matter reached the doors of the Supreme Court after Kuldeep Kumar, the AAP councillor approached it challenging the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to list his petition after three weeks without granting an immediate stay on the results. On January 31, the High Court denied his prayer to dissolve the functioning of the office until further orders.