The Supreme Court on Monday will resume hearing the matter pertaining to the controversial Chandigarh Mayor elections. The bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud will hear the presiding officer Anil Masih's explanation for his conduct during the elections.
A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra will hear the matter.
On February 5, the CJI slammed Masih for his conduct saying that "It is obvious that he defaced the ballot papers. Is this the way he conducts the elections? This is a mockery of democracy. This is a murder of democracy. This man should be prosecuted," CJI Chandrachud said while passing orders.
The apex court in its written order had directed Masih to explain his conduct to court in person in the next hearing. The case has been listed for further hearing tomorrow.
The top court had passed orders directing that the entire record of Chandigarh Mayor elections be sequestered under custody of Punjab & Haryana High Court Registrar General. The court also deferred the February 7 meeting of the Municipal Corporation.
The court also took a prima facie view and said that the high court failed to pass an order to protect the sanctity of the electoral process.
INDIA bloc candidate and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Councillor Kuldeep Kumar had moved the Supreme Court against the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s refusal to grant an immediate stay on the Chandigarh Mayor election result in which a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate was declared as Mayor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.
AAP and Congress jointly contested the Mayoral elections under the INDIA bloc and accused the presiding officer Anil Masih of refusing to allow the nominees of parties to monitor the counting of votes. They have also alleged that videos from the election clearly show that Masih shuffled the votes from one basket to another and tampered with ballot papers.
The CJI in the earlier hearing had expressed dismay over the videos that surfaced from the elections and asked why Masih was looking at the CCTV camera while counting ballot papers.
The controversial Mayoral poll in Chandigarh reached the apex court after the high court refused to immediately stay the election result.
The AAP councillor sought fresh elections under the supervision of a retired High Court judge. However, the high court only issued notice in the case and listed it for further hearing on February 26.
Manoj Sonkar, the Mayor candidate from BJP was elected as the Mayor after winning 16 votes against the 12 votes received by the Congress-AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar.
The presiding officer Anil Masih rejected 8 votes as invalid while counting. The AAP Councillor has alleged that the rejection of the eight votes was done by forgery.