Supreme Court strikes down electoral bonds
The Supreme Court on Thursday, February 15 ruled unanimously that the alterations made to the law to implement the electoral bonds scheme are unconstitutional.
This decision came in response to a series of petitions challenging the legal validity of the scheme, which permitted anonymous funding to political parties.
“Electoral bonds scheme is violative of Article 19(1)(a) and unconstitutional. Amendment to Companies Act are unconstitutional. The issuing bank shall forthwith stop the issue of electoral bonds,” Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, leading a five-judge Constitution bench, said in the verdict.
He also directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to provide “details of the electoral bonds purchased from the date of the court’s interim order on April 12, 2019, until the present, to the Election Commission of India [ECI]” within three weeks from today (i.e., by March 6), which the latter has to publish on its website by March 13, 2024.
Electoral bonds, introduced in the 2017 Union Budget and notified by the government on January 2, 2018, are financial instruments purchasable by individuals or corporate entities from the SBI and then presented to a political party for redemption. They have been highly controversial right from the beginning.
Implemented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in January 2018, the scheme operates under anonymity, with purchasers not obligated to disclose their acquisition of these interest-free bonds and political parties exempt from revealing the funding source.
Instead, only the aggregate sum received via electoral bonds is disclosed to the ECI through audited account statements.
Despite this anonymity, the Union government retains access to donor information through its oversight of the State Bank of India.
Also, it has been seen, through the audited statements, that the BJP has always got the lion’s share of the donations, the primary reason allegedly being its being in power and therefore, that has ensured a massive advantage in spending in election after election.
