The court will examine the ballot papers on Tuesday.
New Delhi:
Taking a tough stand on the alleged defacement of ballot papers during the Chandigarh Mayor elections, the Supreme Court has said that Returning Officer Anil Masih should be prosecuted for “interference in the election process”. The court said this after seeking Mr Masih’s reply, saying this is the first time in the history of independent India that a returning officer has been cross-examined by the Chief Justice of the country.
Hearing a petition on Monday over alleged election irregularities, a day after three AAP councilors joined the BJP, the Supreme Court also said the “horsetrading” going on is a serious matter.
The court has asked the ballot papers to be brought to it for examination on Tuesday. After initially proposing that the votes should be counted by a new returning officer rather than holding fresh elections, the court said it would decide on the issue after examining the ballot papers.
During the counting of the mayoral election on January 30, returning officer Anil Masih had declared eight votes invalid and AAP’s mayoral candidate Kuldeep Kumar was defeated by BJP’s Manoj Sonkar by a margin of four votes. AAP had claimed that Mr Masih, a member of the BJP’s minority cell, had deliberately invalidated the votes.
A video of Mr Masih writing on the ballot papers of some AAP councilors while looking at the camera had surfaced, and the Supreme Court had called his action a “mockery of democracy” during a hearing on February 5.
‘Answer truthfully’
During Monday’s hearing, a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra took note of the fact that BJP’s Manoj Sonkar had resigned from the post of mayor the previous evening. After this it asked Shri Masih to come forward and answer some questions.
Chief Justice Chandrachud said, “Mr Masih, I am asking you a question. If you do not answer truthfully you will be prosecuted. This is a serious matter. We have seen the video. What were you doing looking at the cameras and crossing off the ballot papers? Why were you marking?”
Admitting that he had marked eight ballot papers with a cross (X), Mr Masih replied that he did so because the ballot papers which had been defaced had to be separated.
The Chief Justice asked, “Why did you (Mr Masih) mutilate the ballot papers? You were only supposed to sign the papers. Where is it provided in the rules that you can put other marks on the ballot papers?”
Chief Justice Chandrachud then turned to Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, who was representing the Chandigarh administration, and said, “Mr Solicitor, he (Mr Masih) will have to be prosecuted. He is interfering in the election process.”
new returning officer
Explaining the next steps, the Chief Justice said, “What we propose to do is this. We will direct the Deputy Commissioner to appoint a new returning officer, who is not associated with any political party. To bring the process to a logical level will be carried out.” It was stopped even before the results were declared. The results should be declared regardless of any marks imposed by the returning officer. This process should be judicially monitored by the High Court.
Solicitor General Mehta said he has been told that some ballot papers have been torn or defaced and the High Court should look into them. Responding to this, the counsel for the petitioner in the case – AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar – claimed that only eight ballot papers needed to be seen and they were not torn.
The Supreme Court bench then said it would examine the ballot papers and asked them to be produced before it with adequate security on Tuesday. It also asked Shri Masih to be present.
When requested to hear the case on Wednesday, the Chief Justice said, “The horse-trading process that is going on is a serious matter.”
The court said it would decide on Tuesday after examining the ballot papers on whether fresh elections would be held or the earlier votes would be counted.
