After Masih case, SC appoints observer for Chandigarh poll
The Supreme Court on Monday appointed Justice Jaishree Thakur, a former Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, as an independent observer to physically supervise the Chandigarh mayoral election on January 30.
“The election proceedings shall be conducted in the presence of the learned observer. The proceedings will be duly videographed,” a Bench led by Justice Surya Kant ordered. “The learned observer shall be paid an honorarium of Rs 1 lakh by the Chandigarh Administration within a week,” it said.
The order came on a petition filed by Chandigarh Mayor Kuldeep Kumar seeking a direction to the UT Administration to hold the mayoral election by show of hands instead of secret ballot to ensure fairness in the process.
The Bench, however, rejected the request and said it would not interfere with the high court’s view on this issue.
On behalf of the UT Administration, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he had no objection to the appointment of an independent observer. Senior counsel Gurminder Singh, representing Kumar, suggested that the mayoral election should be by show of hands, instead of secret ballot to ensure fairness in the process. “We all know what happened during the last elections,” Singh had submitted on Friday.
However, the Bench said, “Our concern is that complete transparency should be maintained. We have issued notice only for the purpose of independent observer appointment.” On Friday, the top court had issued notice to the UT Administration and asked it to respond to Kumar’s petition. the Bench – which also included Justice N Kotiswar Singh – had made it clear that the election process should continue. Kuldeep Kumar has challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s order rescheduling the election after January 29 and ordering him to continue as mayor till then. Singh had said the high court held that Kumar was entitled to function as mayor for 12 months from January 30, 2024, when the results were first declared instead of February 20, 2024, when the results were set aside and Kumar was declared elected by the SC. “It will be the date of election which in this case is January 30, when his election was restored. You were declared elected as mayor from the very date of inception. It does not depend on the time of physical occupation of the seat,” Justice Surya Kant said.
Setting aside the UT mayoral poll results, the SC had on February 20 last year declared AAP-Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar the winner. The court had observed that Returning Officer Anil Masih had deliberately invalidated eight ballots cast in favour of Kumar to manipulate the outcome in favour of BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar.
