COMING DOWN heavily on the conduct of the returning officer during the Chandigarh mayoral polls on January 30, the Supreme Court said Monday that what happened during the election was “mockery of democracy” and underlined that “we will not allow democracy to be murdered like this”.
A three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud made the remarks while hearing the petition of AAP-Congress combine candidate for the mayor’s post Kuldeep Kumar who lost to the BJP’s Manoj Sonkar after the returning officer declared eight votes of the alliance invalid.
After watching a video of the election proceedings, CJI Chandrachud, referring to returning officer Anil Masih, said, “What is he doing? It’s obvious that he has defaced the ballot…This man has to be prosecuted.”
“This is a mockery of democracy. It’s murdering democracy. Is this the way he conducts an election? We are appalled by what has happened. We are simply appalled by what has happened,” he said.
The court directed that the “entire records pertaining to the election of the mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation” be kept in the custody of the Registrar General of the Punjab and Haryana High Court by 5 pm Monday.
Agreeing to the request by Senior Advocate A M Singhvi, who appeared for Kumar, the bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, ordered that the meeting of the newly elected body scheduled for February 7 be deferred pending further orders.
It also asked returning officer Masih to be present before the court on February 19, when it will hear the matter again, “to explain his conduct as it appears in the video”.
“Is this behaviour of a returning officer? (He) Looks at the camera, faces the ballot and then obviously where there is a cross at the bottom, he just keeps it in the tray. The moment there is a cross at the top, the man defaces the ballot and looks at the camera to see who is looking at him,” CJI Chandrachud said.
“Please tell your returning officer that the Supreme Court is watching… And we will not allow democracy to be murdered like this. The only thing, the great stabilising force in this country, is the purity of the electoral process, but what has happened here!,” the CJI said as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the bench to not form an opinion without taking all facts into account.
Mehta said, “Your Lordships have seen only one side of the picture.” The CJI then said that the entirety of the video be produced before the court during the next hearing. Mehta agreed to do so.
Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for newly elected mayor Sonkar, sought to draw the court’s attention to some regulations regarding conduct of the election, but the CJI said, “We are not going to go by the regulations. We want our conscience to be satisfied. Otherwise hold a fresh election. We will direct who the returning officer shall be. Conduct a fresh election.”
Mehta once again urged the bench to not “form an opinion based on something said very selectively”. But that did not cool tempers as the CJI said, “Why is he (returning officer) looking at the camera like a fugitive? He has to be doing his duty. He looks at the camera and quietly he defaces the ballot.”
Singhvi said the issue can be resolved by holding fresh elections after sequestering the records. The bench agreed to the request.
Issuing notice, the bench said in its order, “Prima facie, at this stage we are of the considered view that an appropriate interim order was warranted, which the High Court has failed to pass, in order to protect the purity and sanctity of the electoral process.”
“We direct that the entire records pertaining to the election of the mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation shall be sequestered under the custody of the registrar general of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. This shall include the ballot papers, videography of the entire electoral process and all other material in the custody of the returning officer.”
Mehta said the returning officer had already handed them over to the Deputy Commissioner, Union Territory of Chandigarh, on January 30 in a sealed format. The bench then directed that the Deputy Commissioner should hand over the entirety of the records to the Registrar General of the High Court for safekeeping and custody.
The High Court had earlier directed that the proceedings of the election be videographed.
Singhvi said the “returning officer happens to be an acknowledged, active working worker of a political party which is opposed to us”.
“We are 20. There are two parties in alliance. Admittedly, 16 is their number. 36 is total. Voting is done. Thirty-six people come and vote. A tray is kept where the 36 votes fall. The man is supposed to sign. He picks up each, and while signing, in many of these 8 which have been disqualified — as the video will show —he makes squiggles. After the squiggles… he says these 8 are disqualified; all the 8 are mine, so I become 12… He picks up the whole thing and rushes out,” he said.
He urged the court to intervene saying “this is complete negation of democracy”. He submitted that the apex court had laid down in Indira Gandhi’s case that “purity of elections is part of basic structure”.
Kumar had approached the Supreme Court after the Punjab and Haryana High Court declined to grant interim relief.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 05-02-2024 at 16:37 IST
