The Indian Judiciary has taken a very strong and historic step to ensure transparency and fairness in local elections. The Supreme Court, while hearing a big and important petition related to the local body elections of the state of Punjab, has completely canceled the elections in a total of 50 municipal wards of Patiala and Moga districts. The court has given strict orders to conduct fresh and fair elections in all these wards within six weeks. The decision comes following complaints of large-scale rigging, violence and obstruction in the nomination process during local elections. Big revelation in the report of the Inquiry Commission. This entire matter is related to the local body elections held on 21 December 2024. In view of complaints of large-scale irregularities during the elections, the Supreme Court on March 24, 2025 constituted a one-member inquiry commission under the chairmanship of former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Nirmaljit Kaur. After a long investigation, this commission submitted its detailed report to the Supreme Court on 18 November 2025. Accepting the report, the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana found that the law was openly flouted in the nomination process during the elections. According to the Commission's report, nomination papers of candidates were forcibly snatched away, torn or destroyed, many candidates and their proposing supporters were assaulted, illegally detained and intimidated. Voting will be held again in the wards of Patiala and Moga. After its review, the Supreme Court made it clear that it is mandatory to hold re-elections in the 50 wards where the democratic process has been strangled. These 50 wards include 28 wards of Patiala district and 22 wards of Moga district. During the hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Punjab government, informed the court that the state government has no objection to the Commission's suggestions and instructions to hold re-elections. After this, the Supreme Court has directed the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to nominate at least two or three senior members of the High Court Bar as 'Observers' to monitor the re-election process. Strict videography and security arrangements To prevent any rigging in the election process, the Supreme Court has set very stringent security and surveillance standards: the entire process of filling nomination forms, their scrutiny, allotment of election symbols and voting will be videographed. All these digital records of videography will be kept completely safe and handed over to the monitoring committee. Before the commencement of elections, the Punjab Government will have to submit to the Monitoring Committee the ward-wise list of all officers, employees and police officers up to the rank of DSP to be deployed on duty. The entire expenditure on the entire process of re-election and honorarium of officials will be borne by the Punjab Government, along with necessary administrative and security support will also be provided to them. The court has clarified that after the completion of the elections, a final report will be submitted to the Chief Justice of the High Court, and the process will be considered complete only when the Chief Justice is completely satisfied that the voting was conducted in a fair and fear-free environment.
