The Supreme Court on Monday, February 19, said Anil Masih, returning officer in Chandigarh Mayor election, has to be prosecuted as he was interfering with the election process. On February 18, Earlier on Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manoj Sonkar resigned from the post of Chandigarh Mayor, a day ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on allegations of irregularities in the vote-counting process.
The Court suggested disregarding the Returning Officer's marks and instead focusing on counting the votes based on the markings made by voters themselves. Chief Justice of India expressed concern about potential "horse-trading" in the event of a fresh election. The Court requested the production of the ballot papers tomorrow to assess the feasibility of their proposed solution.
The BJP had swept the Chandigarh mayoral polls in a setback to the Congress-AAP alliance that alleged tampering with ballot papers by the presiding officer. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court came down heavily on the Returning Officer who held the Chandigarh Mayor elections, saying he was "murdering democracy" and ordered the preservation of the entire record of the election process, including ballot papers, videography and other material, through the Registrar General of Punjab and Haryana High Court.
"This clearly shows that people are not liking the BJP, and the BJP wants to somehow remain in power. First they stole votes, now we are seeing Operation Lotus" said AAP national spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar on three party councillors joining BJP in Chandigarh, reported news agency PTI.
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it is obvious that the returning officer has defaced the ballot papers.
"Is this the way he conducts the elections? This is a mockery of democracy. This is the murder of democracy. We are appalled. We will not allow democracy to be murdered this way. The man defaces ballots the moment he sees a cross at the bottom. This man should be prosecuted. Is this the behaviour of the returning officer?"