Noting how democracy was thwarted at the grassroots, that too, by misusing the office of the Returning Officer to change the course of the election results, the Supreme Court on Tuesday flexed its extraordinary constitutional power under Article 142 to deliver Aam Aadmi Party a victory by declaring its candidate, Kuldeep Kumar, validly elected as Chandigarh Mayor.
After watching the video of the polling at Chandigarh mayoral polls, a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud concluded that Returning Officer Anil Masih made a “deliberate attempt” to deface eight ballot papers in order to swing the poll results in favour of Kumar’s rival and BJP candidate, Manoj Sonkar.
The court also held that Masih made a patently false statement in the Supreme Court on February 19 that the eight ballots had been defaced before it reached him.
The court issued show cause notice to him, giving him three weeks to explain why criminal action should not be initiated against him.
Congratulating Kumar, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in a post on X wrote, “This became possible only because of Indian democracy and the Honorable Supreme Court. We have to preserve the impartiality of our democracy and autonomous institutions at any cost.”
The court was hearing the plea of AAP candidate for the election Kuldeep Kumar, accusing Returning Officer Anil Masih of electoral malpractices.
The Returning Officer faced the wrath of the top court which ordered his criminal prosecution for allegedly giving false statement before it and his “misdemeanour” during the counting of votes. The SC said Masih had put marks on eight ballot papers to create a ground for treating them as invalidly cast.
“That apart, it is evident that the presiding officer (Masih) is guilty of serious misdemeanour in doing what he did in his role and capacity as a presiding officer,” a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said.
The bench, also comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, directed the Registrar (Judicial) of the apex court to issue a notice to Masih to show cause as to why proceedings should not be initiated against him under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for allegedly making false statement before the court. It said he can file his response to the notice and the matter would be taken up after three weeks.
In its verdict, the Supreme Court bench said Masih’s conduct as the presiding officer has to be deprecated at two levels. “Firstly, by his conduct he has unlawfully altered the course of the mayoral election... Secondly, in making a solemn statement before this court on February 19, the presiding officer expressed falsehood for which he must be held accountable,” the bench said.
It said as a Returning Officer, he could not have been unmindful of the consequences of making such a statement before the Court. The bench noted that before recording Masih’s statement during the hearing on Monday, the Court had placed him on notice about the serious consequences if he was found to have made an incorrect statement.
The Supreme Court on February 19 had voiced its deep concern over the “horse-trading” and said it will examine the ballot papers and video recording of the counting. It said instead of ordering fresh polls, it may consider declaration of results on the basis of votes already cast.
The BJP had won the Chandigarh mayoral polls on January 30 defeating the comfortably placed AAP-Congress alliance candidate after the Returning Officer declared as invalid eight votes of the coalition partners, drawing accusations of tampering with ballots.
Manoj Sonkar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had defeated Kuldeep Kumar after polling 16 votes against his rival’s 12 to bag the Mayor’s post. Sonkar, however, resigned subsequently, while three AAP councillors defected to the BJP.
Rules that edge out women from employment for getting married are ‘coarse’, unconstitutional: Supreme Court
Terminating employment because the woman has got married is a coarse case of gender discrimination and inequality. Acceptance of such patriarchal rule undermines human dignity, right to non-discrimination and fair treatment. Laws and regulations based on gender-based bias are constitutionally impermissible,” the court said in a recent order.
The observations were part of an order which upheld the rights of a woman Permanent Commissioner Officer in the Military Nursing Service who was discharged for getting married.
A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna directed the Union Government to pay former Lieutenant Selina John ₹60 lakh in compensation within eight weeks as a full and final settlement of all her claims. The government had come in appeal against a decision of the Lucknow Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal which had ruled in her favour.
Noting that her release from services was both “wrong and illegal”, the Supreme Court, in a recent order, found that the rule against marriage was applicable only to women nursing officers. The rule was “ex facie manifestly arbitrary”.
Rules making marriage of women employees and their domestic involvement a ground for disentitlement would be unconstitutional,” the order noted. The court also recorded that the Army instruction concerned with the terms and conditions of service for the grant of permanent commissions in the Military Nursing Service was withdrawn in 1995.
NHRC seeks report from DGCA over death of 80-year-old who didn’t get wheelchair at airport
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday issued a notice to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) over the death of an 80-year-old man at the Mumbai airport after he failed to get a wheelchair despite prior request to the airline.
According to reports, there were 32 passengers who needed wheelchair on the particular flight, but there were only 15 available with the ground staff. The octogenarian, who was of Indian origin with a U.S. passport, walked alongside his wife who got a wheelchair. He collapsed after walking around one-and-half km to the immigration area.
The NHRC said that if the incident is found to be true, it raises a serious issue of violation of human rights of the victim. The DGCA should send a detailed report to the commission on the matter within four weeks, it said. The report must include the status of compensation if any, provided to the next of kin of the deceased, and the steps taken/ proposed to be taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur.
Issuing the notice, the commission also observed that there has been a significant increase in the number of air passengers as well as airfare, but “the standard of facilities doesn’t seem to have improved proportionately resulting in several complaints reported in the media and posted on social media”.
Modi government tweaked ‘forest’ definition to help ‘corporate crony friends’: Jairam Ramesh
The Congress on Tuesday applauded the Supreme Court’s interim order asking the States and Union Territories to act as per the definition of a “forest” laid down by the top court in a 1996 judgement, and said that it was committed to protecting forests and environment when an INDIA bloc government is formed at the Centre.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh accused the Narendra Modi-led government of tweaking the laws to make it easier to hand over India’s forests and pollute the environment, to benefit Modi’s “corporate crony friends.”
“So first, he changed the rules in 2017 so that projects that had violated their forest clearance could be legalised. Over 100 projects of big corporates including coal mines, factories and cement plants were allowed to brazenly start work in violation of environmental clearances,” Ramesh alleged in a long post on X. The SC ruling, that comes soon after a judgment against the “electoral bonds scam”, stopped another set of “blatantly illegal and disastrous” Modi government schemes, he said.
The Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2023, the Congress leader said, stripped protection from two lakh square kilometres of forests. “This was in complete violation of a 1996 Supreme Court judgment. This amendment would have made it easy to divert ‘deemed forests’, as well as forests in the North East,” he claimed.
Ramesh, a former Union Minister of Environment and Forests, was one of the six Opposition members to file a dissent note against a Parliamentary Committee report on the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, which had changed the definition of a “forest”.
“One by one, the scams and frauds of the Modi government are being exposed in India’s highest court of law,” he alleged. “The Congress applauds this order, and commits to protecting India’s forests and environment when we form an INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) government,” he added.
In brief
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan on February 20, officials said. Bharatiya Janata Party’s Chunnilal Garasiya and Madan Rathore were also elected unopposed to the Upper House from the State, Assembly Secretary Mahaveer Prasad Sharma said. February 20 was the last day for withdrawing nominations. As no other candidates were contesting, the three leaders were elected to Rajya Sabha unopposed, the officer said.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
Published - February 20, 2024 09:10 pm IST
