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Synopsis

The Supreme Court yesterday directed the ballot papers of the Chandigarh Mayor elections which have been placed in custody of registrar general of Punjab and Haryana high Court as per the court's earlier order would be placed before it today by 10:30AM.

"Necessary security arrangements to be made to ensure safe transit of judicial officer who will be in custody of judicial officer.", the CJI led bench ordered.

The bench yesterday further remarked that it was inclined to direct the deputy commissioner to appoint a fresh Returning Officer who is not aligned to any political party to take the election process to its logical conclusion.

While Returning Officer Anil Massih appeared before Court and admitted that he had put a mark on 8 ballot papers, the bench said, "It is very clear that he has defaced the ballot papers and he has to be prosecuted for it..".

The matter is supposed to be heard today at 2 PM.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had came down heavily on the Returning Officer after going through the video of the proceedings for conducting the election to the Post of Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.

Calling the situation to be a "murder of democracy", the bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra expressed that it was appalled by what had happened.

Accordingly, court had directed that the entire record pertaining to the election of the Mayor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation shall be sequestered under the custody of the Registrar General of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana which shall include, the ballot papers, videography of the entire electoral process; and all other material in the custody of the Returning Officer.

Allegedly, in the Chandigarh Mayor election, a BJP candidate was declared the winner after the votes of 8 councillors of the Congress-AAP alliance were declared invalid.

Case Title: KULDEEP KUMAR vs. U.T. CHANDIGARH & ORS.