Electoral Bonds Case Hearing : Live Updates From Supreme Court

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31 Oct 2023 10:15 AM IST

  • Electoral Bonds Case Hearing : Live Updates From Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court will start hearing today a batch of petitions challenging the electoral bonds scheme. A Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the matter.The case involves a batch of petitions challenging the amendments introduced by the Finance Act 2017 paving the way for the...

    The Supreme Court will start hearing today a batch of petitions challenging the electoral bonds scheme. 

    A Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the matter.

    The case involves a batch of petitions challenging the amendments introduced by the Finance Act 2017 paving the way for the anonymous electoral bonds scheme.The Finance Act 2017 introduced amendments in Reserve Bank of India Act, Companies Act, Income Tax Act, Representation of Peoples Act and Foreign Contributions Regulations Act to make way for the electoral bonds.

    The petitions filed by NGOs Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), political party Communist Party of India (Marxist) challenge the scheme results in making political fundings non-transparent as the electoral bond donors are kept anonymous. They also contend that the scheme facilitate corruption and money laundering by donation through shell companies. Refuting these contentions, the Centre stated that the scheme ensured that clean money comes to political parties through proper banking channels.

    Follow this page for live-updates from the hearing.

    Live Updates

    • 31 Oct 2023 11:05 AM IST

      Bhushan: All that the political parties will have to disclose is that out of the total donations they received, they received 500 crores by Electoral Bonds. That's all. That match of who purchased this bond and which party enchashed- it can only be done by State Bank.

    • 31 Oct 2023 11:04 AM IST

      Bhushan: The political party also may not come to know who has donated. It is open for the party to say - we opened our office in morning and saw these 100 crores of bonds lying under our door. We deposited them, we don't know who gave them. These are bearer bonds.

    • 31 Oct 2023 11:03 AM IST

      Bhushan: Under the scheme, State Bank has to issue electoral bond. So State Bank has a record of who purchased which bonds. Bond are bearer bonds, they're transferable. So if I have purchased it, state bank will know I have purchased. But I can hand over to someone else.

    • 31 Oct 2023 11:01 AM IST

      Bhushan: It has on one hand introduced an opaque instrument - by which nobody can come to know other than the government. It is only the government which will know who contributed to whom.

    • 31 Oct 2023 11:00 AM IST

      Bhushan: Everywhere electoral bonds have not only been introduced, they have been exempted from disclosure under the Companies Act, Income Tax act, Representation of People Act etc

    • 31 Oct 2023 10:59 AM IST

      Bhushan: Then Income Taxt Act. There was a requirement in the Income Tax act that every political party should maintain accounts of where they received donations from, who gave them...now, it says that requirement of keeping a record is omitted for electoral bonds.

    • 31 Oct 2023 10:57 AM IST

      Bhushan: They don't have to disclose which is the political party to whom they have given these electoral bonds. Earlier there was a requirement to disclose that

    • 31 Oct 2023 10:57 AM IST

      Bhushan: Then a slew of changes were made. Earlier the requirement was you had to disclose which party you donated to. Now they say every company should disclose total amount donated...after the amendment they have to only disclose the total amount

    • 31 Oct 2023 10:55 AM IST

      Bhushan: So there was a limit, a cap on the amount of corporate donations that any company could give to a political party. That proviso has been omitted.

    • 31 Oct 2023 10:55 AM IST

      Bhushan: S 182 originally prescribed that the amount contributed in a financial year shall not exceed 7.5% of its average net profits during three immediately preceding financial years.

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