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The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday said the Returning Officer of the Chandigarh mayoral elections should be prosecuted for tampering with the ballot papers and called the incident a "murder of democracy."
"It is obvious that he (Presiding Officer Anil Masih) has defaced the ballot papers. He needs to be prosecuted. Why is he looking at the camera? Mr Solicitor, this is a mockery of democracy and murdering democracy. We are appalled. Is this behaviour of a returning officer? Wherever there is a cross at bottom, he does not touch it and when it is at the top he alters it. Please tell the returning officer that the Supreme Court is watching him," Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud remarked.
The top Court was hearing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) mayoral candidate Kuldeep Kumar's plea seeking fresh mayoral polls in Chandigarh.
The plea challenged the earlier Punjab and Haryana High Court order that refused to grant interim relief to AAP seeking fresh mayoral polls in Chandigarh. The AAP-Congress alliance also demanded that fresh polls be held under the supervision of a retired judge of the court. Masih has been a member of the BJP since 2015.
The apex court also ordered the postponement of the civic body meeting scheduled to be held on February 7.
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Ballot paper tampering row in Chandigarh mayoral polls
The elections for the posts of mayor, senior deputy mayor, and deputy mayor were held on January 30, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won all of them, defeating the Congress-AAP alliance.
"Let the ballots and videography too be preserved...Let the papers be handed over to the Punjab and Haryana High Court Registrar general by 5 pm today. List on the next Monday week," the Court ordered.
The Court's remarks come days after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal slammed the BJP, saying, "world's biggest party was caught on camera stealing votes." The AAP shared a video of the counting of votes in the election and alleged that the presiding officer tampered with the ballots.
Notably, Masih had declared eight votes of Congress and AAP councillors, who jointly contested the election, as invalid. The AAP candidate had won 12 votes. This led the BJP candidate, who secured 16 votes, to win the polls.
(With PTI inputs)
