Scrutiny of electoral bonds in last week of January

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to hear a batch of PILs challenging the law on the electoral bonds for funding of the political parties that is pending since 2015.

A Bench of Justices B R Gavai and Vikram Nath refused to hear it forthwith when the top court was proceeding on the winter holidays a day after. “You can’t have such an emergency just before the penultimate day of the vacation…There is no election as of now. We will hear it in the last week of January, 2023,” the bench said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner NGO 'Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said there are several constitutional questions involved in the petitions pending for the past seven years as it involves the sanctity of the electoral process.

When he pressed for referring the matter to a Constitutional Bench, the court said this will also require a hearing, not possible immediately.

The NGO, which had filed the PIL in 2017 on the alleged issue of corruption and subversion of democracy through illicit and foreign funding of political parties and lack of transparency in the accounts of all political parties, had filed an interim application in March before the assembly polls in West Bengal and Assam seeking that window for sale of electoral bonds be not reopened.