Chandigarh Mayor Polls: SC Orders Prosecution Of Returning Officer

The Supreme Court on Monday said that the returning officer Anil Masih in the Chandigarh Mayor election should be prosecuted.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud slammed the officer calling the entire episode a "serious matter" and questioned him why he was gazing at the camera while marking the ballot papers.

"This is a very serious matter. if there is any falsehood, you will be prosecuted .. Why were you looking into the camera and putting marks in the ballot papers?," India TV quoted the CJI as asking.

Responding to the judge's question, the RO stated that he was just marking the ballot papers which had already been defaced. "There were so many cameras that I was just looking at them," he added.

"Did you or did you not put x marks on ballot papers?" the court asked. "There were eight ballot papers, so that they were not mixed with the rest," the RO informed.

The CJI then pointed out that the RO is authorized to sign the documents, but he is not permitted to mark or place an X on the ballot papers, as per the rule.

"Rule 11 says you can sign.. but which rule says that you can put ticks or X in those ballot papers.. why were you putting marks on those ballot papers?" the judge questioned.

The officer then claimed that he could not distinguish between the two ballot papers."That means you marked it. he has to be prosecuted. in an electoral democracy, this cannot be allowed. We will ask the deputy commissioner to appoint a new returning officer who is not associated to any political party and let the process resume from the stage from it had stopped and the registrar general of HC shall oversee the process of counting etc," the CJI added.

"This whole business of horse trading which is going on is very disturbing. Let the entire video of counting of the votes be also produced tomorrow noon. Anil Masih says he marked 8 ballot papers apart from signing others and says that it was done to mark the defaced ballot papers. We are disturbed with the horse trading which had taken place," the court noted.

The BJP on January 30 swept the Chandigarh mayoral polls against the Congress-AAP alliance.

Manoj Sonkar of the BJP had defeated the AAP's Kuldeep Kumar for the mayor's post, polling 16 votes against his rival's 12. Eight votes were declared invalid.

However, newly-elected Chandigarh Mayor Manoj Sonkar resigned from the post on Sunday.