Early Hearing Sought For Plea In Supreme Court Seeking SIT Probe Into Electoral Bonds Bribery Issue

Advocate Prashant Bhushan on Tuesday (May 14) requested the Supreme Court for an early listing of a plea seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the alleged instances of quid pro quo in the Electoral Bonds Scheme. 

He mentioned the matter before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna & Dipankar Datta (since the Chief Justice of India is not sitting today) 

"I had filed a matter, date given was 23rd of last month, it is seeking an SIT probe into the Electoral Bond Bribery issue" 

Justice Khanna reassured that the CJI and the Registry will take a call on the listing in due course.

"Don't worry that matter is with the CJI, Secretariat, they will be fixing a date."    

The petition filed by NGOs Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) alleges that a scam worth crores of rupees is involved in the Electoral Bonds matter, which can be unravelled only through an independent investigation under the monitoring of the Supreme Court.

The data which was disclosed to the public after the Supreme Court struck down the anonymous electoral bonds scheme showed that the bulk of the bonds appear to have been given as quid pro quo arrangements by corporates to political parties either : (a) to secure government contracts or licenses, (b) to secure protection from investigations by CBI, Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate, (c) as consideration of favourable policy changes. 

The petitioner also alleged that several pharma companies, which were under regulatory scanner for manufacturing substandard drugs, also purchased electoral bonds. The petitioner argued that such arrangements of quid pro quo are in clear violation of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

In this backdrop, the petitioners sought for a court- monitored investigation by an SIT into the "instances of apparent quid pro quo between public servants, political parties,commercial organisations, companies, officials of investigation agencies and others, and other offences as highlighted in the petition."  

Further, the petitioners sought direction to the authorities to recover the amounts from political parties as donated by companies to these parties as part of quid pro quo arrangements where these are found to be proceeds of crime.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court in February delivered its judgment in the electoral bonds case, holding that anonymous electoral bonds are violative of the right to information under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Accordingly, the scheme has been struck down as unconstitutional.

A constitution bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra heard a batch of cases challenging the controversial electoral bonds scheme over a period of three days, before reserving the verdict in November.  

While the court arrived at an unanimous decision, with Chief Justice DY Chandrachud delivering the lead judgment, Justice Khanna has penned a concurring opinion with a slightly different reasoning. Both judgments answered two key questions, namely, first, whether the non-disclosure of information on voluntary contributions to political parties according to the electoral bond scheme and the amendments to Section 29C of Representation of the People Act, Section 183(3) of the Companies Act, Section 13A(b) of the Income Tax Act are violative of the right to information under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and second, whether unlimited corporate funding to political parties as envisaged by the amendment to Section 182(1) of the Companies Act violates the principles of free and fair elections. 

The court held that the restrictive means test of the doctrine of proportionality is not satisfied and that there are other means other than electoral bonds to achieve the purpose of curbing black money, even assuming it to be a legitimate objective. The infringement to the right to information is not justified, the Court held. Acknowledging the right of informational privacy extends to financial contributions which is a facet of political affiliation, Chief Justice Chandrachud revealed that a double proportionality standard was applied to balance the conflicting rights to information and to informational privacy.