EC must keep full details of donations via poll bonds: SC

SC COMMENCED ITS SCRUTINY OF PLEAS PRESSING FOR A RIGHT TO HAVE ACCESS TO DETAILS OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLITICAL PARTIES

- Utkarsh Anand

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is obligated to keep full and up-to-date information on each and every political donor and contributions through electoral bonds (EBS), the Supreme Court said on Tuesday, brushing aside the election watchdog's submission that it was supposed to maintain such data only till 2019.

Referring to an order passed by it on April 12, 2019, in a batch of cases challenging the validity of EBs as a source of political funding, a Constitution bench of the top court remained emphatic that its direction to the political parties for submitting full information with ECI regarding the receipt of EBs was a "continuing order", and that it could not be restricted to the deadline of May 30, 2019, which was mentioned only for the submission of the details for that particular year (2019).

The five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, was prompted to remind ECI of its obligation after it told the polling body to keep the updated data on political funding through EBs ready for a perusal of the court during the hearing, but ECI's counsel replied that he had information on EBs only till 2019.

"Why only till 2019? This was a continuing mandamus. It was an interim order and it had to continue till the final order. You were supposed to keep such data till date," the bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, told advocate Amit Sharma, ECI's counsel.

It asked Sharma if ECI's understanding was that the court's April 12, 2019, order mentioned May 30, 2019, to restrict the furnishing of the information to the latter date.