Mayoral polls: No provision of torn votes not be counted: HC

A torn vote cannot be discarded as invalid, the HC bench of justice Ritu Bahri and justice Nidhi Gupta said

There is no provision under the election rules that torn votes, even in two pieces, should not be counted during counting of votes in an election, the Punjab and Haryana high court has said.

The HC referring to various judgments by the apex court said that any mark or writing which might possibly lead to identification of the voter, that vote should be held invalid. (HT File)

In the detailed judgment released, the high court referring to various judgments by the apex court said that any mark or writing which might possibly lead to identification of the voter, that vote should be held invalid. However, a torn vote cannot be discarded as invalid, the bench of justice Ritu Bahri and justice Nidhi Gupta said.

The judgment was pronounced on November 11, in which high court had dismissed the plea from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors, including their mayoral candidate Anju Katyal, challenging the election of the mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor of Chandigarh municipal corporation in January. Detailed judgment has been released now.

The AAP candidates had lost the election to all three posts on January 8 and were seeking quashing of the election. In the mayoral elections, BJP’s first-time councillor Sarabjit Kaur Dhillon had won after defeating AAP’s Anju Katyal by one vote.

In the polls for the senior deputy mayor, BJP’s Dalip Sharma, had pipped Prem Lata by two votes and for the deputy mayor’s post, BJP’s Anup Gupta and AAP’s Ram Chander Yadav were tied at 14 votes each, after which a draw of lot was conducted which went in Gupta’s favour. The BJP won 12 seats, the Congress eight and the SAD got one. With 14 councillors, AAP had the majority in the 35-member House. However, for polling, BJP also had 14 votes, including that of city MP Kirron Kher.

It had got one more vote as councillor Harpreet Kaur Babla, wife of former Congress leader Devinder Singh Babla, joined the BJP just ahead of the mayoral polls. The couple had joined the saffron party after Devinder Babla was expelled following a spat with Congress unit chief Subhash Chawla.

AAP had questioned why one torn vote in the mayor’s election, in favour of the BJP, was not declared invalid by the presiding officer, while another with a “tick mark”, in favour of the AAP, was. In their plea, AAP councillors had levelled allegations against BJP’s Maheshinder Singh Sidhu, who was the presiding officer in the January 8 elections.

The court said that it was not in dispute that the total votes which were polled were 28, 27 votes were found to be valid. Out of 27 votes, Anju Katyal secured 13 votes and Sarabjit Kaur, the mayor secured 14 votes. One vote which was found to be invalid was having a mark on it. But a torn vote, which went in favour of Sarabjit Kaur was counted. “There is no prohibition to count such (torn) votes,” the bench said dismissing plea from AAP councilors.