A Supreme Courtroom bench on Monday verbally remarked that the presiding officer of the Chandigarh mayoral elections held on January 30 must be prosecuted for defacing the poll papers, Dwell Regulation reported.
Within the mayoral polls on January 30, the Bharatiya Janata Occasion’s candidate Manoj Sonkar, with 16 votes, defeated Kuldeep Kumar Tita, the joint candidate fielded by the Aam Aadmi Occasion and the Congress. Tita bagged 12 votes.
Nevertheless, this was after eight votes from the Opposition alliance have been declared invalid, which triggered protests by supporters of the Aam Aadmi Occasion and the Congress towards the presiding officer Anil Masih.
Whereas the BJP has 14 councillors within the 35-member civic physique, the Aam Aadmi Occasion has 13 and the Congress has seven. The Shiromani Akali Dal has one councillor. Moreover, the Chandigarh Lok Sabha MP is an ex-officio member with voting rights. The present MP is BJP’s Kirron Kher.
On Monday, a Supreme Courtroom bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud was listening to a petition filed by Tita, difficult the refusal of the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Courtroom on January 31 to remain the end result of the polls.
Senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi, showing for Tita, alleged that the presiding officer acted in a partisan method and intentionally defaced eight poll papers of the councillors belonging to the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Occasion, Dwell Regulation reported.
The bench was proven a video of the polling course of.
“Is that this the way in which he [Masih] conducts the elections,” Chandrachud requested in response. “It is a mockery of democracy. That is homicide of democracy. This man [Masih] must be prosecuted.”
The chief justice stated that he was appalled by the actions of the presiding officer.
Masih was summoned earlier than the court docket on February 19 to clarify his conduct as seen within the video.
The highest court docket additionally deferred the assembly of the Chandigarh Municipal Company scheduled on February 7, reported Dwell Regulation.
It stated that an applicable interim order was warranted on this case to guard the purity and sanctity of the electoral course of, which the Excessive Courtroom did not do.
The highest court docket ordered that the information of the mayoral election must be saved with the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Courtroom’s registrar basic. It additionally ordered the ballots and the videography to be preserved. Chandigarh’s deputy commissioner was ordered to submit the information to the registrar basic by Monday night.
Additionally learn: Why the Chandigarh mayor polls escalated right into a nationwide controversy
