The Supreme Court on Tuesday, February 20, ordered that the AAP candidate be declared to be the validly elected candidate for the post of Mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.
The top court ordered that the 8 votes which were treated as invalid, were validly passed in favour of AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar and said that counting the eight votes for him will make him have 20 votes.
“We direct that the election result by the presiding officer is quashed,” the bench said.
“It is evident that presiding officer made a deliberate attempt to deface 8 ballot papers,” it added.
SC slams BJP leader
It also ordered the prosecution of the returning officer for the poll, Anil Masih, a BJP leader, for his “misdemeanour”, after finding serious faults in the conduct of the January 30 election.
The apex court made it clear that it was not quashing the entire electoral exercise and restricting itself to dealing with the wrong-doings in the counting process which led to invalidation of eight votes cast in Kumar’s favour.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said it was evident that Masih made a deliberate attempt to deface eight ballot papers.
The BJP had won the mayoral poll defeating the comfortably placed AAP-Congress alliance candidate after the returning officer declared as invalid eight votes of the coalition partners, drawing accusations of tampering with ballots.
Manoj Sonkar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defeated Kuldeep Kumar after polling 16 votes against his rival’s 12 to bag the mayor’s post. Sonkar, however, resigned subsequently, while three AAP councillors defected to the BJP.
(With excerpts from PTI)
