Chandigarh, 20 Feb:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday has severely reprimanded Returning Officer Anil Masih in the ongoing controversy regarding the Chandigarh Mayoral elections. A bench headed by Chief Justice (CJI) DY Chandrachud probed the eight "invalid" votes at the center of the controversy between the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and said they would be "counted as valid votes and" the results based on it. will be announced on.
The Supreme Court re-counted the votes and declared Aam Aadmi Party councilor Kuldeep Kumar Tita as the mayor. On this occasion, the Supreme Court has asked the Returning Officer Anil Masih to file a reply to the show cause notice within three weeks.
The recount of votes, including the eight votes left out by Returning Officer Masih for some reason - will give the Aam Aadmi Party-Congress alliance a clear victory in the mayoral race. Citing "horse-trading", the court on Monday said it would review the entire video-recording of the ballot papers and the counting day of the Chandigarh mayoral election. The court said that instead of ordering fresh polling, it may consider declaring the results based on the votes already cast.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Chandigarh Mayoral election on January 30 against the Congress-AAP alliance. BJP's Manoj Sonkar defeated AAP's Kuldeep Kumar for the post of mayor by 16 votes to 12. Eight votes were disqualified. Election officer Anil Masih was accused of 'spoiling' eight votes.
AAP councilor Kuldeep Kumar has moved the Supreme Court challenging the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which refused to grant any interim relief to the party's petition seeking the re-election of the Chandigarh mayor. was The AAP leader claimed that the Gathjod had 20 votes against the BJP's 16 in the municipal corporation and that eight of the Gathjod's ballot papers were "damaged" and invalid.