Chandigarh mayor poll verdict overturned, SC raps returning officer

THE Supreme Court on Tuesday declared defeated AAP-Congress alliance candidate Kuldeep Kumar the mayor of Chandigarh after overturning the result of the controversial polls where the BJP nominee had emerged an unlikely winner, in an unprecedented intervention to set right a brazen attempt to rig the election.

- SUEHITRG RALYAN MOHANTY

It ordered the prosecution of returning officer Anil Masih, a BJP leader, for a "serious misdemeanor" for making an allegedly false statement before the court that he had invalidated eight ballots because they had been defaced. A three-judge bench, headed by CJI DY Chandrachud passed the order on Kumar's appeal.