Taking a strict view of the alleged defacement of ballot papers during the Chandigarh mayoral election, the Supreme Court has said that the returning officer, Anil Masih, should be prosecuted for “interfering with the election process”. The court said this after seeking answers from Mr Masih, marking the first time in the history of independent India that a returning officer has been cross-examined by the country’s Chief Justice.
Conducting a hearing on a petition on the alleged irregularities in the election on Monday, a day after three AAP councillors switched over to the BJP, the Supreme Court also said that the “horsetrading” that is going on is a serious matter.
The court has asked for the ballot papers to be brought to it for examination on Tuesday. After initially proposing that, instead of carrying out a fresh election, the votes must be counted afresh by a new returning officer, the court said that it will decide on the issue after examining the ballot papers.
During the counting of the mayoral election on January 30, eight votes had been declared invalid by returning officer Anil Masih and the AAP’s mayoral candidate, Kuldeep Kumar, had been defeated by Manoj Sonkar of the BJP with a margin of four votes. The AAP had claimed that Mr Masih – a member of the BJP’s minority cell – had deliberately invalidated the votes.
A video had emerged of of Mr Masih writing on the ballot papers of some AAP councillors while looking at the camera, and the Supreme Court had called his action a “mockery of democracy” during a hearing on February 5.
‘Answer Truthfully’
During the hearing on Monday, the bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the fact that the BJP’s Manoj Sonkar had resigned as mayor the previous evening and then asked Mr Masih to come forward and answer a few questions.
Chief Justice Chandrachud said, “Mr Masih, I am asking you questions. If you don’t give truthful answers, you will be prosecuted. This is a serious matter. We have seen the video. What were you doing looking at the camera and putting cross marks on the ballot papers? Why were you putting the marks?”
Admitting that he had put cross (X) marks on eight ballot papers, Mr Masih responded that he had done so because the ballot papers that were defaced had to be segregated.
“Why did you (Mr Masih) deface the ballot papers? You only had to sign the papers. Where is it provided in the rules that you can put other marks on the ballot papers,” the Chief Justice asked.
Chief Justice Chandrachud then turned to Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, who was representing the Chandigarh Administration, and said, “Mr Solicitor, he (Mr Masih) has to be prosecuted. He is interfering with the election process.”
