AAP councillor Kuldeep Kumar approached the Supreme Court challenging the Chandigarh Mayor election result and sought for an urgent hearing. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Friday agreed to consider the request for urgent listing of the petition.
The Chief Justice of India asked Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi to send an email request, which he will examine at 1 PM. Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned the petition seeking urgent hearing before the apex court.
The Aam Aadmi Party councillor has moved the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to list his petition after three weeks without granting an immediate stay of the results.
Kuldeep Kumar approached the High Court alleging vote tampering in the Chandigarh Mayor Elections, where Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Manoj Sonkar emerged victorious on Tuesday. BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar secured 16 votes against the 12 votes received by Kuldeep Kumar, the candidate backed by Congress and AAP. Around 8 votes were declared invalid by the Presiding Officer.
The AAP councillor sought setting aside of the impugned election result as the same is a result of complete fraud and forgery laid upon the democratic process and prayed for conducting a fresh elections in a free and fair manner under the supervision of a retired High Court Judge.
On January 31, the Punjab and Haryana High Court denied his prayers to dissolve the functioning of the office until further orders. The court reasoned that whether counting was proper or whether procedure was followed or not, are all questions of facts.
Kuldeep Kumar in his petition alleged that in complete departure of the practice and rules, the Presiding Officer denied to allow the nominees of parties to monitor the counting of votes. He stated that the Presiding Officer in most flimsy manner addressed to the House that he does not want any assistance from the members nominated by the parties contesting the election and that he will count the vote himself.
The plea further claimed that videos from the election reveal that the Presiding Officer shuffled the votes from one basket to another only with a view to create a confusion during which he completely compromised the election process by forgery and tampering.