NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday slammed Anil Masih, the returning officer (RO) of the January 30 Chandigarh mayoral polls, for “defacing ballot papers” and sought the ballots and the video recording of the counting for the court’s perusal. The bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it may consider declaration of results on the basis votes already cast instead of ordering fresh polls.The BJP won the polls after defeating the AAP-Congress alliance candidate after the RO declared eight votes of the latter as invalid. BJP’s Manoj Sonkar was declared winner after polling 16 votes against 12 polled by AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar. Sonkar later resigned while three AAP councillors defected to the BJP.“We are deeply concerned about the horse-trading,” the bench remarked, and fixed the matter for further hearing on Tuesday at 2 pm. The apex court said the RO must be prosecuted for interfering in elections and directed him to be present in the court on Tuesday as well. Masih denied the charges that he tampered with the ballots saying he only put his mark on some ballots that had already been defaced, so as to distinguish them from valid ones. However, the bench was not convinced by this argument.The SC directed the registrar general of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to depute a judicial officer to bring the records safely to New Delhi and present them before it on Tuesday. Court grills returning officerThe SC on Monday posed hard questions to Returning Officer Anil Masih, while warning him of prosecution if he resorted to falsehood. “Why were you looking into the camera and putting the ‘X’ mark on the ballot papers?” the court asked, adding tampering ballots can’t be allowed in an electoral democracy
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