THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
New Delhi, Feb 20: The Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday marked a major triumph for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as it overturned the results of the Chandigarh mayoral elections, where the disqualification of eight ballot votes by the Returning Officer had secured the win for the BJP candidate.
Kuldeep Kumar, the AAP candidate for mayor and the case’s petitioner, has been deemed the election winner by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Chief Justice DY Chandrachud led a three-judge bench that found that the eight votes declared invalid by Returning Officer Anil Masih were legitimate and were cast in support of AAP mayoral candidate Kuldeep Kumar.
Earlier the Supreme Court issued an order on Monday demanding the submission of ballot papers and video footage of the vote counting process in the Chandigarh mayoral elections.
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Intentional tampering by Masih
The bench observed that Anil Masih intentionally attempted to tamper with eight votes that were cast in the petitioner’s favour.
“In this court yesterday, the officer made a statement that he had done so because he found the ballots were defaced. As a matter of fact, it is recorded that none of the ballots were defaced,” the bench stated.
“The conduct of a Presiding Officer has to depcrated at two levels. Firstly by his conduct, he has unlawfully altered the course of the mayor election. Secondly, in making a statement before this court, the officer expressed a patent falsehood for which he must be held accountable,” the bench further stated.
Contempt of court notice issued against Masih
Additionally, Returning Officer Anil Masih has been served a notice of potential contempt of court.
Concerns over the fairness of the elections were also raised by a video that went viral and showed Anil Masih checking off ballots while peeking at the CCTV.
The Supreme Court denounced “horse-trading business” in the mayoral votes during the hearing on Monday and stated that Masih should face legal action if proven guilty of the allegations made against him.
In Chandigarh, the BJP won all three mayoral positions with a landslide victory over the Congress-AAP coalition on January 30. After that, the AAP filed a Supreme Court petition, accusing Returning Officer Anil Masih of “fraud and forgery” during the voting process and advocating for new polls.
