Irrespective of whether the posts are big or small, free and fair elections are imperative to maintain the legitimacy and trust in democracy. What happened in the recent Chandigarh mayoral election was a blot on democracy. Fortunately, the Supreme Court, exercising its power under Article 142 of the Constitution, overturned the results, declaring the AAP-Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar as the winner instead of the previously declared BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar. The apex court rightly held that the presiding officer intentionally defaced eight votes that were for the alliance candidate to invalidate them. The unsavoury episode holds important lessons for political parties as they have the primary responsibility of upholding the sanctity of the process.
While hearing a petition on allegations of vote tampering, the division bench, headed by Chief Justice D.Y Chandrachud, ruled that the eight ‘defaced’ votes should be considered valid. It asserted that in such a case, the top court was duty-bound to ensure that the process of electoral democracy was not allowed to be thwarted by subterfuge. The court’s commendable intervention has undone a grave wrong. The verdict came as a tight slap on the face of BJP’s poll managers who thought they could get away with the blatant manipulation of the election process. The court also ordered the prosecution of returning officer Anil Masih, for his misdemeanour. The apex court has restored the sanctity of rule of law.