New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay operation of the electoral bonds scheme notified by the Centre in January last year but agreed for a detailed hearing next Wednesday. A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the petitioner NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) to file an appropriate application after its lawyer Prashant Bhushan claimed 95% of the electoral bonds have gone to the ruling party BJP.
When attorney general KK Venugopal retorted that the lawyer was giving an election speech, the CJI said in a lighter vein that “yes, it’s election time”. Venugopal said the electoral bonds were introduced to stop flow of black money in the political funding. Bhushan said bonds are bought anonymously and that is why even the Election Commission has objected to the scheme.
On March 27, the Election Commission had told the Court that it had expressed its reservation to introduction of the electoral bonds with the provision of non-disclosure of the contributors as that goes against transparency and accountability in the political funding.
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The Election Commission had on March 27 told the Supreme Court that it had expressed its reservations back on May 26, 2017, on the introduction of electoral bonds and the provision for non-disclosure of contributions as it would cast its shadow on transparency and accountability in political funding and prevent the EC verify if the donations came in violation of Section 29B of the Representation of People Act that bars receipt of such donations from the government companies and foreign sources.
The bonds do not identify donors and are exempt from tax. ADR founder Trilochan Sastry said: “If only few wealthy people and corporate houses are involved in funding through bonds, then the government is bound to work for giving benefits to those who finance it and not the people.
That is a big threat to the Indian democracy.” In an RTI reply, the State Bank of India, the sole supplier of the electoral bonds, reported a surge of around 62% over the past one year from Rs 1056 crore in 2018 to Rs 1716 crore in January to March this year.
ADR, which keeps a watch on the elections and poll funding for the past two decades, came to the Apex Court, alleging that the bond scheme is skewed heavily towards the national parties, with the BJP walking away with the lion”s share. Out of Rs 215 crore coming through the bonds in 2017-18, the BJP got Rs 210 crore and the Congress Rs 5 crore, the ADR report shows.
