A Supreme Court bench on Monday watched the video of alleged defacing of ballots during the Chandigarh mayoral polls and said it was appalled at the behaviour of the presiding officer.
Returning officer was apparently defacing ballots, said the Supreme Court on Monday, adding that it won't allow murder of democracy.
The Supreme Court was hearing on Monday an AAP councillor's plea challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court order that refused to grant any interim relief to the party seeking fresh mayoral polls in Chandigarh.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard the matter.
The bench ordered that the ballot papers and the video recordings of the proceedings be preserved and also ordered indefinite deferment of Chandigarh civic body's first meeting that was scheduled to take place on February 7.
What Happened During Chandigarh Mayor Polls
In a big setback to the Congress-AAP alliance and the opposition bloc INDIA, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the January 30 Chandigarh mayoral polls, an outcome that the losing parties said was possible due to "tampering of ballot papers" by the presiding officer.
Manoj Sonkar of the BJP had defeated AAP's Kuldeep Kumar for the mayor's post, polling 16 votes against his rival's 12. Eight votes were declared invalid.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), after the poll result, had cited a video that purportedly showed presiding officer Anil Masih making some marks on some ballots.
Last week, a division bench of Justices Sudhir Singh and Harsh Bunger of the Punjab and Haryana High Court denied interim relief to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which alleged that ballot papers had been tampered with and sought fresh polls under the supervision of a retired judge of the court.
The high court issued notices to the Chandigarh administration, the municipal corporation, presiding officer Anil Masih and newly-elected mayor Manoj Sonkar, among others, asking then to file their replies within three weeks.
AAP councillor Kumar filed the appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the denial of interim relief and listing of the plea after three weeks. The matter was adjourned till February 26 in the high court.
In the plea filed in the high court, the AAP candidate sought directions for holding fresh polls in a free and fair manner under the supervision of a retired judge to ensure "no malpractice".
The plea said it was filed as the "election was not held in a free and fair manner and there was a gross violation while counting of votes, with tampering of the ballot papers and then declaring them invalid, in the favour of BJP and against the alliance of AAP and Congress," as cited in a news agency PTI report.
