Gurugram: Ruling in favour of the ‘first runner-up’ who challenged the preliminary declared end result of a 2022 panchayat election in Haryana’s Panipat district, the Supreme Court docket earlier this week reversed that preliminary end result, paving the best way for the ‘first runner-up’ to be declared duly elected sarpanch. In a uncommon intervention of this type, the highest courtroom ordered a recount of votes from Digital Voting Machines (EVMs) on its premises, after it held that there was a ‘mistake’ in an earlier recount of votes held on polling day.

In its order delivered on 11 August, the bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and N. Kotiswar Singh declared appellant Mohit Kumar because the duly elected sarpanch of Buana Lakhu village gram panchayat, setting apart the preliminary end result in favour of Kuldeep Singh.

The case highlights lingering considerations over electoral integrity on the grassroots degree. It additionally marked the primary recorded occasion when the nation’s prime courtroom requested for EVMs to be dropped at its premises and oversaw a recount by means of one in all its senior judicial officers.

Newly elected sarpanch of Buana Lakhu panchayat, Mohit Kumar, instructed The Print Thursday he was unsure whether or not the presiding officer of sales space 69, Braj Lal, dedicated an error or whether or not it was a deliberate act to tilt the result in favour of Kuldeep Singh.

“It’s for the authorities to take a name. However what the authorities instructed me and the courtroom is that it was an unintentional mistake,” he stated. Requested what precisely was this ‘mistake’, Kumar stated his serial quantity was 5, whereas Singh’s was 6. However presiding officer Braj Lal positioned him at 6 and Kuldeep at 5, thereby interchanging the votes acquired by every.

Panipat District Collector Virender Dahiya instructed ThePrint that he would act towards officers accountable for the ‘mistake’ as per the instructions of the State Election Fee.

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The controversy

Panchayat polls have been held in Haryana in three phases, with the final two in November 2022. In Buana Lakhu village in Panipat’s Israna tehsil, seven candidates have been within the fray for the put up of sarpanch, with voting held throughout six cubicles and counting of votes the identical day.

The preliminary outcome declared Kuldeep Singh because the ‘winner’ with 1,117 votes out of three,767 polled, and Mohit Kumar the ‘first runner-up’ with 804 votes—a margin of 313.

Later that very same night, Kumar’s supporters allegedly gathered at sales space 69, the place officers stated they created a ruckus whereas protesting the preliminary end result of the election. Authorities known as the police and the election employees, together with Kumar and his supporters, have been transported to the management room in a bus with the EVMs and different ballot data.

As the results of a recount performed that very same night, a video of which was recorded purportedly by the returning officer (RO), Kumar was declared the winner of the election.

Singh challenged this within the Punjab and Haryana HC through a writ petition, which on 5 March 2024 put aside the recount ordered by the Election Tribunal, restoring Singh as sarpanch.

It held that after the RO declared the preliminary end in favour of Singh, issuing Varieties 19 and 21-B (certificates of election) underneath Haryana Panchayati Raj Election Guidelines, 1994, the RO grew to become functus officio (having discharged one’s responsibility) and therefore lacked jurisdiction to change or “right” the result based mostly on an alleged clerical error within the tally of votes at sales space 69.

Emphasising that no provision within the 1994 Guidelines permits revisions as soon as outcomes are declared, the excessive courtroom held the next re-drafting of varieties unlawful and unsustainable.

Accessed by ThePrint, the excessive courtroom’s 5 March 2024 judgment reveals that Israna block improvement officer (BDO) and panchayat officer Poonam Chanda in her affidavit earlier than the courtroom submitted that polling was held at six cubicles (cubicles 65 to 70), and that the presiding officer of sales space 65 additionally doubled as RO. It provides that returning officers of cubicles 66-70 have been to submit their outcomes to the presiding officer of sales space 65 for closing declaration.

“The Presiding Officer-cum-Returning Officer appointed at sales space No. 65 compiled the votes of the candidates and declared the outcome and the certificates have been issued to the Kuldeep Singh. Thereafter, within the videography achieved earlier, it got here to note that collection of the names and votes of the candidates are ready wrongly by the Presiding Officer appointed at Sales space No. 69. Being clerical mistake performed at sales space No. 69, the outcome sheet was re-prepared and on the premise of the identical the respondent No. 5 (Mohit Kumar) was declared as profitable/profitable candidate for the put up of Sarpanch Gram Panchayat Buana Lakhu.

“Therefore, there isn’t any as such motion has been taken which can be termed as biased, arbitrary, unlawful or un-fair. Solely clerical mistake performed at sales space No. 69 was eliminated. It’s settled precept (typed as principal) of regulation that any clerical mistake will be rectified at any stage,” the judgment provides.

Counting on precedent by means of a 2001 Supreme Court docket order (Malkit Kaur vs Jatinder Kaur), the excessive courtroom held that the only real treatment out there to Kumar was an election petition underneath Part 176 of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994.

The bench of Justices Sudhir Singh and Harsh Bunger additionally granted Kumar the freedom to file an election petition by which he alleged critical discrepancies, significantly at sales space 69, the place he alleged votes have been both miscounted or manipulated.

The extra civil decide (senior division), Panipat, whose courtroom additionally serves as Election Tribunal, after inspecting proof, ordered a recount of the EVM at sales space 69 on 22 April 2025. It directed the deputy commissioner-cum-district election officer (DEO) of Panipat to conduct the train on 7 Might 2025. Nonetheless, Singh challenged this order within the excessive courtroom and a single judge-bench put aside the Election Tribunal’s order on 1 July 2025.

In her detailed 36-page judgment, excessive courtroom decide Justice Nidhi Gupta held the Election Tribunal’s order untenable on a number of grounds, noting that since a recount was already held on election day, a second recount was pointless and violative of electoral finality.

Additional, the excessive courtroom in its order stated the Election Tribunal’s order breached statutory mandates underneath the 1994 Guidelines, as no particular provision was cited for ordering a second recount after proof closure. It additionally discarded Kumar’s reliance on the video recorded utilizing a cell phone as the premise for discrepancies, stating that election guidelines prohibit cellphones and videography in cubicles to protect poll secrecy. Kumar, in flip, moved a particular go away petition (SLP) within the Supreme Court docket, which was heard as a civil attraction.

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SC’s intervention: EVMs dropped at apex courtroom

The bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta, and N. Kotiswar Singh took observe of the “peculiar info and circumstances” within the case. 

In an interim order on 31 July 2025, it directed Panipat deputy commissioner to supply all EVMs earlier than a nominated registrar of the Supreme Court docket by 10 am on 6 August 2025. Whereas the Election Tribunal ordered recounting in only one sales space, the bench expanded the scope and ordered a recount of votes from all cubicles, not simply the place a dispute was raised.

“The recounting shall be duly video-graphed … and the outcome shall be signed by the events’ representatives,” the order stated, emphasising it was “with out prejudice to the rights and contentions of the events”. Kaveri, officer on particular responsibility (registrar), oversaw the recount with logistical assist from the highest courtroom’s secretary common. 

The detailed report, submitted on 6 August 2025, included booth-wise tallies and a consolidated outcome: Mohit Kumar with 1,051 and Kuldeep Singh with 1,000 votes of a complete 3,767.  The recount, subsequently, put Kumar forward of Singh by a margin of 51 votes.

Ultimate order: Winner declared, however with caveats

In its closing judgment on 11 August 2025, the bench put aside the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket’s 1 July 2025 order and accepted the OSD’s report as “closing and conclusive” on the vote depend.

“There being prima facie no cause to doubt the report … particularly when your entire recounting has been duly videographed and its result’s signed by the representatives of the events, we’re glad that the appellant deserves to be declared because the elected sarpanch,” its order learn.

The apex courtroom directed the Panipat deputy commissioner to challenge a notification inside two days declaring Kumar the winner, permitting him to imagine workplace instantly. Nonetheless, taking a balanced method, it permitted the events to pursue any unresolved points earlier than the Election Tribunal, which should now deal with the Supreme Court docket’s recount as binding.

Kuldeep Singh’s counsel, senior advocate Gagan Gupta, argued that different points of the petition, together with procedural lapses, remained unadjudicated. “Proof is full, and the case is ripe for closing arguments,” he submitted. 

The Supreme Court docket bench acknowledged his submission and directed the Election Tribunal to listen to closing arguments and ship a judgment, however with out questioning the recount.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)

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