New Delhi:

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.)

Chandigarh:

In a bizarre flip-flop, two AAP councillors from the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation have returned to the party less than a month after quitting and joining the BJP. Poonam Devi and Neha Musawat, who were among the three councillors who had joined the BJP last month, termed their re-entry into the AAP their “ghar wapsi” (return home).

The councillors had joined the BJP on February 18, a day before the Supreme Court pulled up returning officer Anil Masih for defacing the ballots and “interfering with the process” in the Chandigarh mayoral election, which saw a BJP candidate pulling off a shock victory despite the numbers being stacked against him.

Two days later, the Supreme Court had, in a landmark verdict, declared the AAP’s Kuldeep Kumar the mayor and ordered legal action against Mr Masih. 

Re-elections were held for the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor last week, however, and the BJP had won both. The votes of Ms Devi and Ms Musawat played a key role in the party achieving victory because its strength in the 35-member municipal corporation went up from 14 to 17 after the entry of the three AAP councillors. The Congress and the AAP, who were fighting the election together, also had 17. 

The BJP’s Kuljeet Singh Sandhu was elected senior deputy mayor after bagging 19 votes as opposed to the 16 polled by the Congress’ Gurpreet Gabim, and one vote had been declared invalid. Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, who is a BJP member, has voting rights in the corporation and one of the councillors is from the Shiromani Akali Dal.

After joining the BJP, Ms Devi had praised PM Narendra Modi and said the AAP was “a party of liars”.

“PM Modi helps the poor and Dalits and I have been inspired by him. The AAP had promised to make me the mayoral candidate. My husband, who is a social activist, has been jailed. The AAP is a party of liars,” she had said in Hindi. 

After rejoining the party on Saturday, both Ms Devi and Ms Musawat said misunderstandings happen and they are happy to be doing a “ghar wapsi”. The third AAP councillor, Gurcharan Kala, who had quit with the two women, is still with the BJP.