THE SUPREME Court Tuesday quashed and set aside the result of the January 30 mayoral polls for the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation in which the presiding officer had named BJP’s Manoj Sonkar as the winner, and instead declared Kuldeep Kumar, the AAP-Congress coalition candidate, as the validly elected candidate. It also issued a show cause notice to Anil Masih, the presiding officer, on why steps should not be initiated against him under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
A three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud perused the ballot papers and said that the eight ballots on which Masih had made a marking, and were later counted as invalid, were duly cast in favour of Kuldeep Kumar. Kumar had approached the Supreme Court against the outcome of the election.
Terming the verdict as a win for the INDIA bloc, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “We thank the Supreme Court for the verdict at a time in this country which is seeing dictatorship… This is the first win for the INDIA Alliance. Thanks to the verdict, we have snatched victory from their (the BJP’s) jaws. This an answer for all those people who feel that the BJP cannot be defeated. It can be defeated using strategy, with planning and with hard work,” Kejriwal said.
He also questioned BJP’s confidence in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. “Just think, if they can do all this to steal just 8 votes, which are 25% of the total votes, in such a small election, what can they do when 90 crore votes are cast? Where are they getting the confidence that they will get 370 seats? This proves there’s something behind the scenes…it has been proven that these people don’t win elections, they steal them,” said Kejriwal, who is also the AAP convenor.
Setting aside the January 30 election results as “contrary to law”, the bench — comprising Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra —however refused to quash the entire electoral process.
“We are of the considered view that it would be inappropriate to set aside the election process in its entirety when the only infirmity which has been found is at the stage when the counting of votes was recorded by the presiding officer. Allowing the entire election process to be set aside would further compound the destruction of fundamental democratic principles which has taken place as a consequence of the conduct of the presiding officer.”
Accordingly, it said, “We are of the considered view that in such a case, this court is duty bound, particularly in the context of its jurisdiction under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice to ensure that the process of electoral democracy is not allowed to be thwarted by such subterfuges. Allowing such a state of affairs to take place would be destructive of the most valued principles on which the entire edifice of democracy in our country depends. We are therefore of the view that the court must step in in such exceptional situations to ensure that the basic mandate of electoral democracy, albeit at the local participatory level is preserved.”
Votes in favour of Cong-AAP candidate valid, says SC
“Each of those 8 invalid votes were in fact validly cast in favour of the petitioner. Adding the 8 invalid votes to the 12 votes which the presiding officer recorded to have been polled by the petitioner would make his tally as 20 votes. The respondent on the other hand has polled 16 votes. We accordingly order and direct that the result of the election as declared by the presiding officer shall stand quashed and set aside. The petitioner is declared to be the validly elected candidate for election as Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation,” the Supreme Court said.
On Monday, Masih had told the bench that he had put the marks on the ballot papers since they were already defaced and he wanted to avoid them getting mixed up with the other ballots. Tuesday, he tried to justify his stand, but the court was not convinced.
Senior Advocate A M Singhvi who appeared for Kumar, urged the court to act and said “he is defending it completely till the end and should be open to the consequences whatever the court may want to visit him with”. He said Masih “has the gall to do it on video, to keep quiet, to come to court and think he can get away with it. And till yesterday, he was misleading all of us”.
Presiding Officer guilty, SC orders notice to show cause
The Supreme Court said it was evident that Masih “is guilty of a serious misdemeanour in doing what he did in his role and capacity as presiding officer”. “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. In doing so, the presiding officer has clearly acted beyond the terms of his remit under the statutory regulations…,” it said.
Masih, who was the presiding officer, had told the court on Monday he had put the mark on the ballot papers as they were already defaced, so as to avoid them being mixed up with the other ballots. Referring to this, the order said, “In this court yesterday, the presiding officer made a solemn statement that he had done so because he had found that each of the ballots was defaced. As already recorded, it is evident that none of the ballots have been defaced.”
“The conduct of the presiding officer has to be deprecated at two levels. Firstly, by his conduct, he has unlawfully altered the course of the Mayoral election. Secondly, making a solemn statement before this court on February 19, 2024, the presiding officer has expressed a patent falsehood for which he must be held accountable,” it said.
Appearing for BJP’s Sonkar, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh said the court should order a fresh election but the bench declined to do so. It said, the relevant regulations “provides for three eventualities… in which a ballot can be treated as invalid: (1) when a member has voted for more than one candidate; or (2) where a member places any mark on the paper by which he may be identified; and (3) if the mark indicating the vote is placed on the ballot paper in such a manner as to make it doubtful for which candidate the vote has been cast”, and added that none of these are met in the instant case.
Directing that a show cause notice be issued to Masih, it said, “We are of the considered view that a fit and proper case has been made out for invoking the jurisdiction of this court under section 340 of the code of criminal procedure, 1973, in respect of the conduct of the Shri Anil Masih, presiding officer… The Registrar Judicial is accordingly directed to issue a notice to Anil Masih, counsellor with the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, who was the presiding officer at the election which took place on 30 January 2024 to show cause as to why steps should not be initiated against him under section 340 of CrPC, 1973. The notice shall be made returnable on… after three weeks.” He would have an opportunity to respond to the notice.
AAP leader Kuldeep Kumar (centre) celebrates after being declared the Chandigarh Mayor by the Supreme Court. (Express photo by Kamleshwar Singh) 
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