NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declared AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar the winner of the Chandigarh Mayoral polls, setting aside the January 30 poll verdict on the BJP victory.
The bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra found presiding officer Anil Masih guilty of defacing eight ballots, which were cast in favour of Kuldeep. The court considered those ballots valid and transferred them to Kuldeep.
The judges ordered Masih’s prosecution for making a false statement in court. The bench said setting aside the election process itself wouldn’t be proper as the issue arose only when Masih made the counting.
The SC said Masih’s conduct has to be deprecated at two levels. One, he altered the course of mayoral poll. Two, he made a solemn statement before the court on February 19, which was a lie.
At the outset, the bench got to physically examine the invalidated ballots. A video of the voting process was played in the open court. The judges noted the eight ballot papers ‘marked’ by Masih were in favour of Kuldeep.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi argued it was wrong to call his client Masih a thief, adding he was not a fugitive.