The Supreme Court has set aside elections held in 50 municipal wards in Punjab and ordered fresh polls after a fact-finding commission found “widespread obstruction” during the nomination process.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana directed fresh elections in 28 wards in Patiala district and 22 in Moga. The local body elections in the state were held on December 21, 2024.
The order followed the court’s acceptance of the findings of a one-member commission headed by former high court judge Nirmaljit Kaur. The commission, appointed on March 24, 2025, submitted its report on November 18 that year.
The commission found that nomination papers were allegedly snatched, torn or destroyed, while candidates were assaulted, detained or threatened, the court noted.
“We accept the recommendations and direct that fresh elections be conducted in the relevant 50 wards. The entire process of re-election shall be completed within six weeks,” the bench said in its September 28 order, uploaded on Wednesday.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Punjab government, submitted that the state had no objection to the commission’s recommendations.
The court directed the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to nominate two or three senior members of the high court bar as observers for the re-election process.
The filing and scrutiny of nomination papers, allocation of symbols and polling will be videographed in the presence of the observers, with the recordings to be preserved and handed over to a monitoring committee.
The state government has also been directed to provide the monitoring committee with ward-wise details of officials deployed for election duty, as well as the names of police officers of the rank of DSP and above.
The court said complaints regarding any interference or obstruction in the re-election process, including by officials, could be brought before the monitoring committee.
The re-election process will be considered complete only after the Chief Justice of the High Court is satisfied, based on the committee’s report, that the polls were conducted in a free and fair manner.
The dispute arose after several candidates who were allegedly prevented from filing nomination papers, as well as those challenging the election of the mayor and deputy mayor of the Patiala municipal corporation, approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
On January 10, 2025, the high court allowed the Patiala municipal corporation elections to proceed, holding that deferment in some wards would not impede the election process.
The aggrieved candidates subsequently challenged the order before the Supreme Court.
(With inputs from PTI)