The Supreme Court has set aside the elections in 50 Punjab municipal wards of Patiala and Moga districts and ordered fresh polls to be completed within six weeks under the monitoring of a committee headed by a retired High Court judge.
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court has set aside the elections held in 50 Punjab municipal wards across Patiala and Moga districts after accepting the findings of a court-appointed inquiry into alleged obstruction of nominations, and has directed that fresh elections be held under judicial monitoring within six weeks [Seema Sharma and Others v. State of Punjab and Others].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana passed the order on September 28, 2026, in a batch of special leave petitions arising from challenges to the municipal elections.
The case
The petitioners alleged physical assaults on candidates, snatching and destruction of nomination papers, and failure to videograph the nomination process despite High Court directions. These are the petitioners’ allegations, and the Court acted on the findings of the inquiry it had appointed, headed by former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Nirmaljit Kaur.
The inquiry findings
According to the inquiry, nomination papers were snatched, torn or destroyed, and candidates were assaulted, detained or threatened. In Patiala, elections in 28 wards were found vitiated, mainly because opposition candidates were prevented from filing nominations or contesting. In Moga, elections in 22 wards were found vitiated: seven in Dharamkot, through obstruction, coerced withdrawals or wrongful rejection of nominations, and all 15 wards in Baghapurana, through systematic obstruction of opposition candidates.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the State of Punjab, told the Court that the State had no objection to accepting the recommendations of the inquiry.
The directions
The Court set aside the elections in the 50 wards and directed that the entire process of re-election be completed within six weeks. The Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has been asked to constitute, within one week, a Monitoring Committee headed by a retired High Court judge, and the re-election schedule is to be notified only after that Committee is in place.
Two or three senior High Court advocates are to act as Observers, with the nomination process, symbol allocation and polling to be videographed in their presence and the recordings handed to the Committee. Before nominations begin, the State must give the Committee a ward-wise list of election-duty officials and a list of police officers of the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police and above.
Complaints of interference can be made to the Monitoring Committee, which will report to the Chief Justice of the High Court for appropriate judicial action. The State Government is to bear the honorarium and expenses of the Committee and the Observers. Results may be declared only after the Chief Justice of the High Court is satisfied, on the Committee’s report, that the re-election was free and fair.
The Court also clarified the limits of its order:
The order shall not constitute a precedent for future by-elections.
Why the order matters
The order shows the Supreme Court stepping in where access to the ballot itself, and not just the count, is alleged to have been compromised. By setting aside the elections on the strength of a court-appointed inquiry and placing the fresh polls under a High Court-supervised Committee, the Bench has put video recording and independent observation at the centre of the re-election.
At the same time, the Court has confined the directions to the peculiar facts of this case. The findings are those of the inquiry and the Court’s order; the State did not contest the recommendations.
Case Title: Seema Sharma and Others v. State of Punjab and Others [SLP(C) No. 3894/2025 with connected matters]
Bench: CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana, Supreme Court of India
Date of Order: September 28, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Maninderjit Singh Bedi (Advocate General) for the State of Punjab; Mr. Randeep Singh Bains and Senior Advocates S. Sriram, Amit Rawal and Shadan Farasat, among others, for the petitioners