RETURNING
OFFICER - POLITY
News:
‘A murder of democracy...
a mockery of purity of elections’: Supreme Court remarks on conduct of
Chandigarh mayoral polls
What's
in the news?
·
The Supreme Court gave the BJP victory at
Chandigarh mayoral elections a jolt, threatening to order fresh elections after
a video played in the open courtroom showed the Returning Officer “obviously
defacing” ballot papers, while taking stealthy glances at the camera overhead
like a “fugitive”.
Key
takeaways:
·
Reprimanding the Returning Officer for the
mayoral polls, the SC says he has to be ‘prosecuted’; warns that the court is
‘watching over him’.
Returning
Officer:
·
A Returning Officer is responsible for overseeing the election in
a constituency, or sometimes in two constituencies, as directed by the
Election Commission (EC).
·
The EC
appoints the Returning Officer and Assistant Returning Officer for a
constituency in consultation with the governments of the State or Union
Territory as the case may be.
·
Role
of RO is mentioned in Part IV of Representation of People Act 1951.
·
The
EC can designate or nominate the same person to be returning officer for more
than one constituency.
Duties
of Returning Officer:
●
Accepting
and scrutinizing nomination forms.
●
Publishing the affidavits of candidates.
●
Allotting symbols to the contesting
candidates.
●
Preparing the list of contesting
candidates.
●
Preparing the EVMs and VVPATs.
●
Training polling personnel.
●
Designating counting centres.
●
Counting
the votes and declaring the result.