New Delhi, Mar 15: The Supreme Court has quashed the election of RJD MLA from Sitamahri in Bihar and declared his nearest BJP rival elected in his place to the state assembly saying votes polled in favour of the latter were wrongly rejected by the returning officer. The RJD candidate Sahid Ali Khan had defeated Hari Shankar Prasad of BJP in the February 2000 assembly elections by a margin of 35 votes.
However, a bench comprising Justice R C Lahoti and Justice Brijesh Kumar found that 90 votes cast in favour of Prasad were wrongly rejected by the returning officer. Taking the 90 votes into account, the Supreme Court declared Prasad elected by a margin of 55 votes. "We find that the wrong stamp was made available to the voters by the polling officer. That being the position, such of the ballot papers marked by the stamp supplied have been wrongly rejected by the returning officer and they are to be counted in favour of Prasad also as per the direction of the Election Commission," Justice Kumar said.

Quoting an earlier apex court judgement, the bench said where supply of a wrong instrument was due to mistake of the polling officer to the voters and the ballot papers having been marked by such stamp as supplied wrongly, they were not liable to be rejected. Bureau Report