Alleged ballot tampering in Chandigarh mayoral poll: Hearing in Supreme Court today

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, February 18

The Supreme Court will on Monday hear AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar’s petition seeking the quashing of the Chandigarh mayoral election results that declared BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar the winner.

The matter is listed before a three-judge Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud, which had on February 5 termed it as “murder of democracy” and ordered the returning officer, who allegedly defaced ballots, to appear before it on February 19 to explain his conduct.

The returning officer is expected to appear before the Bench and explain his conduct as visible in a video clip.

“Please tell your Returning Officer that the Supreme Court is watching over him. We will not allow democracy to be murdered like this. The only thing… the great stabilising force in the country is the purity of the electoral process,” an angry CJI Chandrachud had on February 5 told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the returning officer, after watching a video clip of his alleged misdeeds.

“We are simply appalled by what has happened… Is this the behaviour of a returning officer? He looks at the camera and defaces the ballot and obviously, where there is a cross at the bottom, he just keeps it into the tray. The moment there is a cross at the top; the man defaces the ballot and then looks at the camera to see who’s looking at him,” the CJI had said, coming down heavily on the returning officer.

BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar had bagged 16 votes against the 12 polled by the Congress-AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar after eight votes were rejected in the January 30 polls to elect the Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.

Issuing notice on Kumar’s petition challenging the results and seeking fresh election, the top court had directed that the entire record pertaining to the mayoral election would be sequestered under the custody of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Registrar General.