Chandigarh Mayor Polls: Supreme Court quashes election result, declares AAP Candidate to be winner

The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed the decision by Returning Officer (RO) Anil Masih (the Presiding Officer) to declare a BJP candidate as Chandigarh Mayor on January 30 and declared Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Kuldeep Kumar to be the winner of the mayoral polls instead [Kuldeep Kumar vs UT Chandigarh and ors]..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra passed the order after the Court rejected RO Masih's explanation on why he had declared the eight votes for AAP candidate to be invalid. ."Adding the eight invalid votes to the twelve votes which the Presiding Officer recorded to have been polled by the appellant would make his tally twenty votes. The eighth respondent, on the other hand, has polled sixteen votes. We accordingly order and direct that the result of the election as declared by the Presiding Officer shall stand quashed and set aside. The appellant, Kuldeep Kumar, is declared to be the validly elected candidate for election as Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation," the Court ordered. .The Court also strongly deprecated the conduct of Returning Officer Anil Masih. The Court said that Masih had "unlawfully altered the course of the mayoral election" and that he had made statement before the Court that was a "patent falsehood." .The Court, therefore, issued a show-cause notice to Masih."As Presiding Officer, Shri Anil Masih could not have been unmindful of the consequences of making a statement which, prima facie, appears to be false to his knowledge in the course of judicial proceedings. The Registrar (Judicial) is accordingly directed to issue a notice to show cause ... as to why steps should not be initiated against him under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973. The notice shall be made returnable on 15 March 2024. Shri Anil Masih shall have an opportunity to file his response," the Court ordered..The bench was hearing a petition filed by AAP Councillor Kuldeep Kumar who alleged fraud in RO Masih's decision to declare Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Manoj Sonkar (since resigned) as the Chandigarh Mayor on January 30..BJP's Manoj Sonkar was declared to have won the Mayor elections on January 30 on the strength of 16 votes against the 12 votes received by the Congress-AAP candidate, Kuldeep Kumar.This was despite the fact that the AAP-Congress alliance had a majority in the house with 20 members. A total of 36 votes were cast of which 8 votes were rejected as invalid during the counting process.AAP councillor Kuldeep Kumar challenged the Mayor poll results initially before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. When the High Court declined to stay the election results, he moved a plea before the Supreme Court.Notably, while the matter was pending before the top court, the BJP candidate (Sonkar) resigned from the post of Mayor on Monday and three AAP Councillors defected to the BJP.This development was taken note of by the top court on Monday which said that it was "distressed" by such "horse-trading."During the hearing of the matter on Monday, Masih had said that he had only marked (by putting ticks and "x" marks) the eight ballot papers submitted by the AAP-Congress alliance to set them apart as they were "defaced."The Court had then ordered that the ballot papers and the video of the counting process be produced before it..When the matter was taken up for hearing today, the Court was handed the ballot papers. After examining the ballot papers, the bench noted that these ballot papers which had been crossed as invalid by Masih were clearly votes cast in favour of the AAP candidate."See, Kuldeep Kumar and Manoj Kumar.. What has been done is ... eight ballots invalidated.. all eight have received the stamp for Kuldeep Kumar.. The RO signs at the bottom and puts a single line there ... everywhere, he puts a single line.. I have a question to Mr. Masih - you said that you put the line because it was defaced ... Where has it been defaced?" CJI Chandrachud asked.."He (Masih) said that in court too! Anil Masih exacerbated the felony by repeating that before this court," added Senior Advocate AM Singhvi who represented Kuldeep Kumar (petitioner before the Court)..Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi defended Masih's conduct by submitting:"There is a small dot, if it is seen clearly ... What he has done is ... in one of them, there is a small dot ... Some (ballot papers) are folded from the top ... By virtue of a line tick, he disqualified the same and that was his assessment."Rohatgi added that Masih was only seen looking up at the CCTV cameras in the counting area as there was a "commotion outside.""No one can do this with cameras present ... There is no guilty man looking at the camera," Rohatgi said..After the Court played the video of the January 30 vote count in the courtroom, Rohatgi also argued that,"It is clear that the ballots were snatched by the AAP members.. There are dots and some are folded.. One may say anything but not to call someone as a thief... It was all wrong that he looked at the camera etc."The Court, however, replied that Masih can be seen making these marks first and declaring the result, before any commotion broke out or any attempts were made to snatch the ballot papers..Meanwhile, Punjab's Advocate General (AG) Gurminder Singh argued that Masih's explanation of events was misleading. "They ask voters to fold the slips laterally... The RO explained the procedure himself... It is on video.. He (Masih) is very well aware why dot is there and he is misleading his senior counsel. He asked for it to be folded," the AG told the Court..Murder of democracy in Chandigarh Mayor polls; Returning Officer should be prosecuted: Supreme Court.The Court after hearing all parties concluded that Masih had tampered with the electoral process. Therefore, it set aside the elections results declared by Masih and declared the AAP candidate to be the winner. The matter will next be taken up on March to consider Masih's response to the show-cause notice..Advocates RPS Bara, Ferry Sofat, and Kuldeep Kaur also appeared in the case for the petitioner (AAP councillor). Senior Advocate Maninder Singh represented certain other candidates. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Chandigarh administration..[Read judgment].[Read live coverage of the hearing today]