Poll Officer Who Tampered Chandigarh Ballots Apologises To Supreme Court

The returning officer for the Chandigarh mayoral polls, Anil Masih, on Friday tendered an unconditional apology before the Supreme Court for making a false statement that the ballots were invalid.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Mr Masih, told a bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, "We have rendered an unconditional apology. I had a long chat with him. He will withdraw the first affidavit and surrender to the magnanimity of this court. This is an unconditional apology."

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for AAP, said, "He can't walk away with just an apology."

The bench said it will hear the matter in the second week of July.

The top court had initiated proceedings against Mr Masih under Section 340 of CrPC after he invalidated eight votes by tampering with the ballot papers and made false statements before the bench.

In the previous affidavit, Mr Masih said that when he made the statement before the court on February 19, he was reeling from depression and anxiety.

In February, the top court declared Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Councillor Kuldeep Kumar to be the winner of the Chandigarh Mayoral polls. It had quashed the decision by Mr Masih by which he declared BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Sonkar as Chandigarh Mayor on January 30.

The order of the Supreme Court came as it found that the returning officer had deliberately defaced eight ballots that were cast in favour of Kuldeep Kumar to make them invalid.

The top court today physically examined the ballot papers and found that they were not defaced.

The bench had then slammed Mr Masih, saying he had "unlawfully altered the course of the mayoral election."

BJP's Manoj Kumar Sonkar bagged 16 votes against the 12 votes received by AAP's Kuldeep Kumar, despite having 20 councillors. The action of rejecting eight votes of the AAP-Congress alliance as invalid had sparked allegations of vote tempering.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)