The Supreme Court on March 21 fixed April 11 to examine whether petitions challenging the validity of electoral bonds scheme need to be referred to a Constitution Bench.
A Bench led by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud was urged by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, advocates Prashant Bhushan, Shadan Farasat and Neha Rathi, all for the petitioners, to advance the next date from May 2 to April 11.
Mr. Dave said the court should take up the case before the Karnataka Assembly elections scheduled in May this year.
Explained | The electoral bonds scheme and the challenges to it in Supreme Court
Mr. Farasat argued that the issue of election bonds raised cardinal and substantial questions of law affecting fair elections which are essential to democracy and need to be heard by a Bench of at least five Supreme Court judges.
The petitions, which have been in limbo for about eight years, allege that the scheme has opened the doors for anonymous donations to political parties days before polls are due.
Advocate Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, has argued that amendments made via Finance Acts of 2016 and 2017, both passed as Money Bills, have through the electoral bonds scheme, “opened the floodgates to unlimited political donations”.
“The amendments have removed the caps on campaign donations by companies and have legalised anonymous donations. The Finance Act of 2017 has introduced the use of electoral bonds which are exempt from disclosure under the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951, opening doors to unchecked, unknown funding to political parties," Mr. Bhushan has argued.
The Finance Act, 2016 has also amended the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010, to allow foreign companies with subsidiaries in India to fund political parties in India, effectively, exposing Indian politics and democracy to international lobbyists,” the petitioners have contended.
Response received from the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) on January 27 to a Right to Information application filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired) showed that electoral bonds were sold from March 2018 to December 2022 in 24 phases at a total cost of ₹10.23 crore to the taxpayer.
The expenses include ₹8.33 crore in bank commission and ₹1.90 crore in printing charges. While ₹6.74 lakh electoral bonds were printed, bonds worth ₹11,699.84 crore were sold, the RTI response showed.
This petition has sought the quashing of the November 7, 2022 notification issued by the Finance Ministry amending the electoral bonds scheme. “An additional period of 15 days shall be specified by the Central government in the year of general elections to the Legislative Assembly of States and Union Territories with the legislature,” the gazette notification had said. Earlier, a 30-day extra period for sale was allowed only in Lok Sabha election year.
In an earlier hearing in October last year, the court had asked the government whether the electoral bonds system revealed the source of money pumped in to fund political parties even as the Centre had repeatedly maintained that the scheme was “absolutely transparent”.
