Top court scraps electoral bonds

5-judge Constitution bench calls scheme unconstitutional, says names of all donors must be made public

- Utkarsh Anand

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the Centre's 2018 electoral bond (EB) scheme of political funding, declaring it to be "unconstitutional" because it completely anonymised contributions made to political parties and added that restricting black money or illegal election financing - some of the articulated objectives of the scheme - did not justify violating voters' right to information in a disproportionate manner.

Ordering full disclosure of donors and recipients of EBS issued since April 2019 on the website of the Election Commission of India (ECI) by March 13, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, ruled that amendments made in the Representation of the People Act, Income Tax Act, and Companies Act through the 2017 Finance Act violated the constitutional right of the electors to access information on the funding of political parties "which is necessary to identify corruption and quid pro quo transactions and governance information".

The verdict came ahead of the Lok Sabha elections expected to take place in April or May this year and was immediately welcomed by opposition parties since the inception of the scheme, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power at the Centre since 2014, has received 54.8% of the electoral bonds purchased in this period- and civil society activists.

Welcoming the verdict, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the party had called the scheme "opaque and undemocratic" when it was launched. Subsequently in its 2019 manifesto, he added, the Congress promised to scrap the "Modi government's dubious scheme".