Chandigarh mayoral polls: Returning Officer Anil Masih tenders unconditional apology to SC

New Delhi [India], April 5 (ANI): The returning officer in 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 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.”

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

In the previous affidavit, 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 Masih by which he declared BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Sonkar as Chandigarh Mayor on January 30.

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

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

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

BJP’s 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.