The Supreme Court on Tuesday exercised its special plenary powers to declare AAP-Congress nominee Kuldeep Kumar as Chandigarh mayor, quashing the earlier results which had pronounced BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar as the winner of the January 30 elections marred by allegations of manipulation.

Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a three-judge bench, said the democratic process cannot be “thwarted by such subterfuges” as otherwise it “would be destructive of the most valued principles on which the entire edifice of the democracy of our country depends”.

The court initiated perjury proceedings against presiding officer Anil Masih for allegedly misleading the court on Monday by making a solemn statement that he had not tampered with the ballot papers despite video footage pointing to his complicity in the manipulation.

Reacting to the verdict, AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told reporters: “This is an important verdict in this difficult time of dictatorship in the country when democracy and institutions are being crushed. This is the first and a very big win for INDIA and it has a lot of relevance.... It is important for INDIA as it gives the message that the BJP can be defeated with good planning, strategy and hard work.”

Kejriwal added: “If they can steal eight out of 36 votes, I shudder to think how many votes out of 90 crore they can steal (in the Lok Sabha polls)…. It is proven that they don’t win elections but steal the mandate. This entire saga of Chandigarh has exposed them…. First, they manipulate elections — they manipulate the voters’ list, there are many questions raised on EVMs but they never tried to win the confidence of the people in them. If they still lose, they let loose the ED, the CBI, they throw money, and then poach MLAs and MPs.”

Asked about not sharing seats with the Congress in Punjab, Kejriwal said: “That is part of our strategy to win…. Many rounds of talks have happened (for seat sharing in Delhi) and we will announce it soon.”

The Supreme Court passed the directions on an appeal filed by Kumar, the aggrieved candidate and AAP councillor, challenging the refusal of Punjab and Haryana High Court to stay the election process despite video footage of the polls allegedly exposing the tampering of votes by the presiding officer that resulted in the victory of BJP nominee Sonkar in the Chandigarh municipal elections.

Sonkar had polled 16 votes against 12 votes cast in favour of Kumar after eight votes were declared invalid by Masih.

The apex court rejected the BJP’s plea for fresh elections as the bench said the entire dispute centred only on the eight votes.

“…Allowing the entire process to be set aside would further compound the destruction of the fundamental democratic principles which had taken place as a consequence of the conduct of the presiding officer,” the Supreme Court said.

“We are of the considered view that in such a case this court is duty-bound, particularly under its jurisdiction under Article 142 of the Constitution, to do complete justice to ensure that the process of electoral democracy is not allowed to be thwarted by such subterfuge.

“We are therefore of the view that the court must step in such exceptional situations (to protect) the basic mandate of electoral democracy,” Justice Chandrachud said, adding that the court needed to ensure that democracy is “preserved” at the local participatory level too.

The court added: “It is evident from the election results... that while the petitioner (Kumar) is reflected to have polled 12 votes, the eight votes which were treated as invalid were wrongly treated as so. Each of such invalid votes was in fact validly cast in favour of the petitioner. Adding the eight invalid votes to the petitioner’s 12 votes would take his tally to 20 votes.

“The eighth respondent (Sonkar) on the other hand has polled 16 votes. We accordingly order and direct that the results of the elections as declared by the presiding officer stand quashed and set aside. The petitioner is declared to be a validly elected candidate for elections as mayor of the Chandigarh municipal elections.”

The latest ruling is another setback for the BJP smarting under the recent five-judge constitution bench judgment quashing the controversial electoral bonds scheme.

The bench, which included Justices J. B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, on Tuesday passed the verdict after viewing in open court video clips of the counting process of January 30 in which Masih, a BJP-nominated councillor and returning officer, had declared eight votes invalid after defacing the ballot papers.

Sonkar had earlier this week resigned as mayor after Kumar had filed the petition.

The CJI expressed his anguish at the way Masih was seen tampering with the ballot papers to declare the eight votes invalid.

The CJI asked Masih why he put a line on the ballot boxes to declare the eight votes invalid, the latter had no proper answer.