SC agrees to list plea for fresh Chandigarh mayoral polls; no date specified
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday won the mayoral polls in Chandigarh election after a fourth of the votes were scrapped
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to list Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Kuldeep Kumar’s plea for fresh mayoral polls in Chandigarh without specifying a date for it, days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday won the election after a fourth of the votes were scrapped.
The AAP and Congress alleged vote tampering and prompted Kumar to move the court seeking fresh polls.
“It will be listed,” a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said after senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the matter for urgent listing. Singhvi cited a video purportedly showing returning officer Anil Masih acting unfairly. “This is serious. We are seeking an urgent listing.”
The bench said, “We do not encourage oral mentioning of cases. You can send a mail to the Registry. I will look at it during lunch.”
Kumar has challenged the Punjab and Haryana high court’s January 31 order refusing to stay the election or restrain mayor Manoj Sonkar from taking office. He accused Masih of tampering with the voting process. Kumar alleged Masih did not allow the nominees for the mayoral election to monitor the vote counting.
Kumar, who was the AAP and Congress’s mayoral candidate, managed to get 12 votes after Masih declared eight votes invalid. Sonkar bagged 16 votes in the 35-member corporation. The BJP also won posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor even as the AAP and Congress have a combined strength of 20 councillors.
Kumar accused Masih of acting in a “flimsy” manner, citing video evidence. He added a separate basket for invalid votes was shuffled compromising the entire election process. Kumar said the nominees were not allowed to inspect the invalid votes. He said the reasons for invalidating the votes were also not known.
“The high court ought to have stayed the results of the election and ordered the ballot papers and other electoral paraphernalia be taken into custody... to preserve it for...determining the legality of the elections... By not granting any interim relief, the high court has allowed the fraud to continue,” Kumar said in his plea.
The plea added allowing Sonkar to continue as mayor “effectively validates a corrupt practice in gross violation of the paramount principle of democracy – free and fair elections, and thereby erodes public trust.”
The high court admitted Kumar’s plea and granted three weeks to the Chandigarh administration and other parties, including Masih, to file their responses. It is scheduled to hear the matter next on February 26.
The high court directed the holding of the elections to the three top posts in the Chandigarh municipal corporation on January 30 on Kumar’s petition. On January 18, the polls could not be held after Masih fell ill. The Chandigarh administration wanted to postpone the election until February 6.
