New Delhi | The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the result of the Chandigarh mayoral poll in which the BJP candidate had emerged an unlikely winner, and declared defeated AAP-Congress alliance candidate Kuldeep Kumar as the new city mayor.
It also ordered 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 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) had 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.
New Delhi | Following are the highlights of the judgement of the Supreme Court which on Tuesday declared defeated AAP-Congress alliance candidate Kuldeep Kumar as mayor of Chandigarh.
* SC sets aside election result which declared Manoj Sonkar of BJP as mayor.
* SC orders prosecution of returning officer Anil Masih for allegedly making a false statement before the court.
* SC says the result declared by the returning officer, a nominated councillor, was clearly contrary to the law.
* SC says it is duty-bound to ensure that the process of electoral democracy is not allowed to be thwarted by such subterfuges.
* SC says court must step in exceptional situations to ensure that the basic mandate of electoral democracy, albeit at the local participatory level, is preserved.
* SC says that in eight ballot papers, which were invalidated by Masih, the votes were duly cast in favour of Kumar.
* SC says Masih had evidently put his mark on these eight ballot papers for the purpose of creating a ground for treating them as invalidly cast.
* SC directs the registrar (judicial) of the apex court to issue a notice to Masih to show cause as to why proceedings should not be initiated against him under section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for allegedly making a false statement before the court.
