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Journalism of Courage
The Supreme Court has quashed the result of the January 30 election for the Mayor of Chandigarh after finding that presiding officer Anil Masih had deliberately invalidated eight ballots cast in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar ‘Tita’.
The Bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, while setting aside the result as “contrary to law” and declaring Kuldeep Kumar as the “validly elected candidate”, refused to quash the election process itself.
The court used its power under Article 142 of the Constitution to do “complete justice” and protect the sanctity of electoral democracy. “Allowing such a state of affairs…would be destructive of the most valued principles on which the entire edifice of democracy in our country depends,” it said.
The Bench said it was evident that “while the petitioner is reflected to have polled 12 votes, the eight votes which are treated as invalid were wrongly treated to be so”, and “each of those…invalid votes were in fact validly cast…in favour of the petitioner”.
It follows that Kuldeep had in fact received 20 votes, while Manoj Sonkar, the BJP candidate, had won 16. “We accordingly order and direct that the result of the election as declared by the presiding officer shall stand quashed and set aside,” the court said.
Sonkar had resigned on Sunday, ahead of the court’s verdict passed on Tuesday.
The powers of the Mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation are limited to calling meetings and deciding the agenda. Although the corporation has a five-year term, the Mayor is elected for only one year. The post is reserved for a woman candidate in the first and fourth year of each corporation. The last election to the corporation was held in 2021.
This year’s election was politically significant because it saw an alliance, for the first time, between the AAP and Congress against the BJP, setting the stage for potential alliances for the Lok Sabha elections. The parties are together in the opposition INDIA bloc, and have been in talks for a seat-sharing deal in Delhi, even though they have decided to contest separately in Punjab.
The elections were initially scheduled for January 18, but when AAP and Congress councillors reached the venue, they were told voting had been postponed as presiding officer Anil Masih had taken ill. The Union Territory Administration wanted to hold the election on February 6, but Kuldeep approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which ordered the election to be held on January 30.
Ahead of the election, AAP had 13 councillors and the Congress seven, which gave the alliance a clear advantage in the 36-member House. The BJP had 15 votes — 14 of its councillors, plus the vote of its Chandigarh Lok Sabha MP (who has a vote under the rules) Kirron Kher. One councillor belongs to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The BJP said it had this councillor’s support and, therefore, 16 votes in all.
On election day, after presiding officer Masih rejected eight votes of the AAP-Congress as invalid, the BJP’s Sonkar was declared elected.
After videos showed Masih marking ballot papers so they could be declared invalid, Kuldeep moved the High Court and then Supreme Court.
On February 5, CJI Chandrachud observed that it was obvious that Masih has defaced the ballots, and that “this man has to be prosecuted”. The court said it was “appalled” at the “mockery” and “murder” of democracy, and summoned Masih on January 19.
On Tuesday, the court said that “the presiding officer has evidently put his own mark on the bottom half of the ballot for the purpose of creating a ground for treating the ballot to have been invalidly cast… so as to secure a result…by which the eighth respondent (Sonkar) would be declared…elected”.
It said that Masih’s conduct has to be deprecated because, “firstly,…he has unlawfully altered the course of the Mayoral election” and, “secondly, [by] making a solemn statement before this court on February 19, [he] has expressed a patent falsehood for which he must be held accountable”.
Masih had told the court on Monday that he had marked the ballot papers that were already defaced, in order to avoid mixing them up with other ballots. On Tuesday, the court directed that a show cause notice be served on him.
Meanwhile, three AAP councillors joined the BJP on Sunday. Had the court ordered a fresh election instead of merely quashing the result, the AAP-Congress tally would have fallen to 17 from 20, while the BJP’s votes would have risen to 19 (including the SAD councillor’s vote and MP Kher), giving giving the party the majority of the 36 ballots that would be cast. Unlike in elections for Parliament or state Assemblies, there is no anti-defection law in municipal elections.
