Agencies
New Delhi, Jan 31: The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday failed to get any interim relief from the Punjab and Haryana high court on its plea for setting aside the Chandigarh mayoral election and said it will approach the Supreme Court for an early hearing.
The Congress and AAP held a protest here and a police complaint was also filed on behalf of their joint mayoral candidate and AAP councillor Kuldeep Kumar against the presiding officer, accusing him of tampering with ballot papers in the Tuesday election to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party which retained all three seats.
A division bench of justices Sudhir Singh and Harsh Bunger, which was hearing a plea filed by Kumar, issued notices to the Chandigarh administration, the municipal corporation, presiding officer Anil Masih and new mayor Manoj Sonkar, among others, to file their replies within three weeks and adjourned the matter till February 26.
Chandigarh administration senior standing counsel Anil Mehta told reporters that the court refused to give any interim relief to the petitioner. “We have been given a three-week time to file a response and we will do so,” said Mehta. He added that the issue regarding the maintainability of the petition was still pending. Kumar in his plea has sought fresh elections under the supervision of a retired high court judge, alleging tampering with ballot papers by the presiding officer. Both the officer and BJP have rubbished the allegations.
