New Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would name an independent observer for the Chandigarh mayoral election to be conducted on January 30.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order without naming the observer and said the entire election process should be conducted in his presence and duly videographed.
It said the Chandigarh administration would pay an honorarium to the independent observer.
Punjab advocate general Gurminder Singh, appearing for incumbent mayor Kuldeep Kumar suggested a retired high court judge could be appointed as the independent observer.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the Chandigarh administration, said he had no problem with the appointment of an independent observer but it should not become a precedent so that all municipal corporations start approaching the supreme court.
The bench said it was only concerned with fairness and transparency of the process while it recorded the submissions and passed the order without naming the observer, who it said would be named later.
Chandigarh mayor Kuldeep Kumar from AAP filed a plea seeking “show of hands” instead of “secret ballot” to ensure fairness in the polling process.
The bench however rejected the request and said it would not interfere with the high court’s view on this issue.
On January 24, the top court mulled appointing an observer to ensure “free and fair” mayoral elections while indicating that a retired high court judge can be appointed to ensure fairness.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)