Chandigarh Mayoral Elections: SC Pulls up Retuning Officer, Refuses to Order Fresh Polling

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Feb 19: In a major jolt to the BJP in Chandigarh, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to order a fresh poll in the controversial January 30 mayoral elections and the results would be declared on the existing ballot papers irrespective of defacement.

For this, the Court said, it would peruse on Tuesday the ballot papers and the entire video recording of the counting day. This came after a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, questioned the presiding officer Anil Masih, as to why he put ‘X’ marks on eight ballot papers.

Taking a dim view of the alleged defacement of ballot papers, the Supreme Court has said the returning officer should be prosecuted for “interfering with the election process.” The court said this after seeking answers from Mr Masih, marking the first time in the history of independent India that a returning officer has been cross-examined by the country’s Chief Justice.

The court directed the registrar general of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to depute a judicial officer to bring the records safely to Delhi. The votes will be counted by disregarding the ‘X’ marks. The court stated that it will ask the Deputy Commissioner of Chandigarh to nominate a neutral officer to be the returning officer to count the ballots and declare the results. “We ourselves will look at the records at 2 pm,” the bench said.

“What we propose to do is this. We will direct the Deputy Commissioner to appoint a fresh returning officer, who is not aligned to any political party. The process shall be taken to the logical conclusion from the stage it stopped before the declaration of results. Let the results be declared disregarding any mark put by the returning officer. Let the process be overseen judicially by the high court.”

The court’s attempt to settle this matter on the basis of January 30 voting has been seen by many as a possible blow to the BJP, which would have been in a strong position had a re-election been ordered. The BJP was well short of majority on the polling day but the poaching of three AAP councillors Poonam Devi, Neha, and Gurcharan Kala has given them the definite upper hand.

In the 35-member Municipal Corporation, the BJP now has 19 votes including 17 of its councillors and in addition it has the support of the lone Shiromoni Akali Dal councillor and the Chandigarh Lok Sabha MP Kirron Kher, who has voting rights as an ex-officio member. After the trio’s defections, the AAP has only 10, and its ally, the Congress, has seven. A fresh election would see the BJP at a narrow but crucial advantage.

The three ex-AAP members’ switch to the BJP has also renewed talk about ‘horse-trading.’ “The scare was that this will lead to horse-trading… that has happened now,” the petitioner said, to which the Chief Justice acknowledged the seriousness of the allegation.

The court has asked for the ballot papers to be brought to it for examination on Tuesday. After initially proposing that, instead of carrying out a fresh election, the votes must be counted afresh by a new returning officer, the court said that it will decide on the issue after examining the ballot papers.

During the counting of the mayoral election on January 30, eight votes had been declared invalid by returning officer Anil Masih and the AAP’s mayoral candidate, Kuldeep Kumar, had been defeated by Manoj Sonkar of the BJP with a margin of four votes. The AAP had claimed that Mr Masih – a member of the BJP’s minority cell – had deliberately invalidated the votes.

A video had emerged of Mr Masih writing on the ballot papers of some AAP councillors while looking at the camera, and the Supreme Court had called his action a “mockery of democracy” during a hearing on February 5.

During the hearing on Monday, the bench took note of the fact that the BJP’s Manoj Sonkar had resigned as mayor the previous evening and then asked Mr Masih to come forward and answer a few questions. Chief Justice Chandrachud said, “Mr Masih, I am asking you questions. If you don’t give truthful answers, you will be prosecuted. This is a serious matter. We have seen the video. What were you doing looking at the camera and putting cross marks on the ballot papers? Why were you putting the marks?”

Admitting that he had put cross (X) marks on eight ballot papers, Mr Masih responded that he had done so because the ballot papers that were defaced had to be segregated. “Why did you (Mr Masih) deface the ballot papers? You only had to sign the papers. Where is it provided in the rules that you can put other marks on the ballot papers,” the Chief Justice asked.

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) has to be prosecuted. He is interfering with the election process.”

Solicitor General Mehta said he had been told that some of the ballot papers were torn or defaced and that the high court should see them. Responding to this, the lawyer for the petitioner in the case – AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar – claimed only eight ballot papers needed to be seen and that they were not torn. The Supreme Court bench then said it would examine the ballot papers and asked for them to be presented before it, with adequate security, on Tuesday. It also asked Mr Masih to be present.

When a request was made that the matter be heard on Wednesday, the Chief Justice said, “The process of horse-trading which is going on is a serious matter.” The court said it would decide on whether fresh elections would be conducted or the earlier votes would be counted after examining the ballot papers on Tuesday.

Reacting to the resignation of the BJP mayor on the eve of the Supreme Court hearing, the AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said the resignation of Mr Sonkar proved that the elections were manipulated. “The mayor’s resignation makes it clear that there was manipulation in the election. If the election is not won, our councillors are being purchased and broken,” Mr Kejriwal said.